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DYNAMIC FACTORS IN EDUCATION 



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DYNAMIC FACTORS IN 
EDUCATION 



BY 



M. V. O'SHEA 

PROFESSOR OF THE SCIENCE AND ART OF EDUCATION 

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

AUTHOR OF "EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT," ETC. 



Wtfa gorfe 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

LONDON : MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 
1906 

All rights reter-ved 



LIBRARY of congress! 
Two Copies Received 
MAR 201906 

^Qopy right Entry 

CLASS a.\AZ, 

'_ ^COPY B. ' 



Copyright, 1906, 
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and electrotyped. Published March, 1906. 



NotiDooli ?Prea8 

J. S. Cushlng & Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 

Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 



TO 

Xeaton Uiwin, lEsquire 

QUINCY, ILLINOIS 

WHO FOR A NUMBER OF YEARS HAS GIVEN MOST GENEROUSLY 
OF HIS TIME, ENERGY, AND PRIVATE MEANS FOR THE IMPROVE- 
MENT OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF HIS NATIVE CITY, IN RESPECT 
PARTICULARLY OF THE MATTERS DISCUSSED IN THIS VOLUME. 
THE AUTHOR IS FIRMLY CONVINCED THAT AMERICAN EDUCATION 
TO-DAY STANDS IN NEED, ABOVE EVERYTHING ELSE, OF LAY- 
MEN WHO WILL ACQUAINT THEMSELVES WITH CONTEMPORARY 
EDUCATIONAL IDEALS, AND WHO WILL COOPERATE ENTHUSIASTI- 
CALLY WITH EDUCATORS IN SECURING THE MATERIAL EQUIPMENT 
AND SOCIAL SANCTION ESSENTIAL TO GET THESE IDEALS REAL- 
IZED IN EVERY COMMUNITY. 



PREFACE 

One does not have to go back very far in order to 
reach the time when such terms as "motor activity," 
"dynamic education," "fatigue," and the like were 
quite strange to educational literature. It was not then 
thought that teachers should concern themselves with 
the matters denoted by these terms. It was their busi- 
ness to "train the mind," to "fashion character," to 
"develop thought," and to "awaken and nourish ethi- 
cal feeling." The active side of child nature was little 
heeded, except to repress it, because it was not regarded 
as a vital or important phase of the "spiritual self." 
Similarly, while it was more or less generally appre- 
ciated that a sound body aided in preserving a sound 
mind, still it was believed that the spirit could if it 
would resist the ill effects of a depleted nervous system. 
Sufficiently aroused, it could overcome all unfavorable 
material influences, and keep the mind keen and ready 
and the heart pure and well-disposed even if the flesh 
were weak. 

But we are entering upon a new era for educational 
theory. Some among us are saying that the dynamic 
side of human nature is the really important thing to 



VI PREFACE 

be looked after in the schoolroom, and outside, too, for 
that matter. I find myself in sympathy with the view 
that the motor and physical factors in teaching should 
receive more attention than they now do in most places, 
and this will account for the appearance of the present 
volume. I have aimed to show herein, in the first part, 
that in the early years, at any rate, motor expression 
is essential to all learning; and I have endeavored to 
indicate, in outline mainly, how the requirements of 
dynamic education can be provided for in all depart- 
ments of school work. I have sought to point out 
further that there is a definite order in which the motor 
powers develop, and that in our instruction we will 
achieve the highest success only as we conform quite 
closely to this order. In the second part of the book 
the relation between fatigue and activity is considered. 
On the one side the nature and causes of fatigue are 
discussed, and then the effects upon mind and body are 
traced. I have gone into considerable detail in point- 
ing out ways and means of carrying forward the work 
of education without overtaxing the pupil. 

Many, perhaps most, of the principles presented in 
this volume are, I think, becoming familiar to students 
of mental development, but they are still very hazy, to 
say the least, in the minds of the majority of those who 
are charged with the immediate care and culture of the 
young. So in the preparation of this volume I have 
kept in mind these latter persons, and have aimed to 



PREFACE VU 

avoid technicalities and all purely theoretical discussion. 
I have endeavored to show concretely the changes which 
take place with development in respect of various ac- 
tivities, and so it has seemed to me best to start back 
at the beginning in most cases. To get any just notion 
of the power of motor coordination, for instance, of a 
child of five or older, we must see what he can do at 
the outset when everything is comparatively simple; 
and then we must give an account of what happens as 
he moves on in his course. 

It has been my purpose, in the first place, to sum- 
marize the investigations that have been made upon the 
different topics discussed. I have, of course, and often 
without special mention of the fact, constantly con- 
sulted the more important writers on Mental Develop- 
ment and Fatigue, — Preyer, Baldwin, Sully, Hall, Shinn, 
Moore, Perez, Mosso, Binet et Henri, and many others. 
Then it has been my aim further to give the results of 
my own observations in the schools and upon several 
children whose development from the beginning I have 
followed in detail for a number of years. These chil- 
dren have furnished me the largest number of my illus- 
trations, which, I may say, I have tried to keep within 
reasonable bounds, contenting myself with one or two 
typical illustrations of a principle. 

At the close of each chapter I have indicated a num- 
ber of topics for investigation and discussion, which are 
designed to encourage the reader to make practical test 



VIU PREFACE 

and application of the principles developed. It has 
been my thought that these topics would prove service- 
able in study classes, and to the student working alone. 
For this reason I have sought to make every question 
and suggestion relate to concrete matters within the 
experience of most students and teachers, and with 
which they are concerned in their everyday work. 

In the Bibliography I have indicated the general char- 
acter of each reference, and where it has been referred 
to in the text, I have also suggested the classes of 
readers for whom it is best adapted. Throughout the 
text I have referred to the most important book and 
periodical Hterature treating of each topic considered, 
and it will be apparent in most cases, I think, what is 
the general point of view of any reference. It has 
seemed to me this would enable the student to choose 
his readings with greater definiteness than if lists of 
books had been given at the close of each chapter. 

The substance of some of the paragraphs in the 
second part of the book appeared originally in a Bulle- 
tin published in the Science Series of the University of 
Wisconsin, but the matter is here presented from a new 

point of view. 

M. V. O'SHEA. 

Madison, Wisconsin, 
October, 1905. 



CONTENTS 

PART I 

THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 
CHAPTER I 

PAGE 

The Development of Inhibition i 

Children's lack of inhibition — The effect of motor restraint 
on mental activity — Restraint comes with development — The 
neurological view of inhibition — Suggestions gained from the 
phenomena of degeneration — Topics for investigation and 
discussion. 

CHAPTER II 

Dynamic Education 26 

The passing of the static ideal of education — The need of 
exercising cerebral motor areas — What is implied in under- 
standing a thing ? — Motor activity in the traditional school- 
room — Reform has begun in the kindergarten — The kinder- 
garten is not yet wholly free, though — The teaching of verbal 
patriotism as a typical abstract conception — Topics for investi- 
gation and discussion. 

CHAPTER III 

The Dynamic Aspect of School Studies 41 

Arithmetic as an instance — The dynamic principle applies to 
all studies — Reading in an older day — The high school as the 
last in the procession — Can language be taught in a dynamic 
way? — The teaching of science in the high school — Topics for 
investigation and discussion. 



PAGE 

54 



X CONTENTS 

CHAPTER IV 

Manual Activities in Education 

Some current views of manual activities — The real value of 
manual activities — The child's first absorbing interest — Manual 
activities viewed from psychological and neurological stand- 
points — Suggestions gained from the training of defective and 
delinquent children — Topics for investigation and discussion. 

CHAPTER V 

Manual Activities in Education (continued) .... 65 
Manual training must follow the lead of the child's interests 
— The logical vs. the psychological order — The individual must 
follow the racial course — What does it mean to go from the 
simple to the complex in manual activities ? — Crude work first, 
aesthetic work last — The doctrine of formal discipline through 
manual activities — The principle illustrated in athletics — Phys- 
ical virtues applied to social situations — With development 
manual must give way to mental activities — Topics for investi- 
gation and discussion. 

CHAPTER VI 

The Method of acquiring Adaptive Activities ... 81 
The helplessness of the infant — The first step in gaining 
adaptive activities — A concrete instance of acquiring adaptive 
movements — Learning involves excessive activity — The inte- 
gration of simple acts into more complex adjustments — Noth- 
ing is learned de novo — Topics for investigation and discussion. 

CHAPTER VII 

The Method of acquiring Imitative Activities ... 99 
The phenomena of mimicry — When does imitation begin ? — 
Apperception in imitation — The principle illustrated in adult 
imitation — The psychology of imitation — The course of de- 
velopment with respect to imitativeness — Topics for investi- 
gation and discussion. 



CONTENTS XI 



CHAPTER VIII 

PAGB 

The Teaching of School-room Arts no 

The scribble stage in acquiring school-room arts — How does 
the child become copy-minded ? — The principle in writing is 
the same as in any adaptive activity — The principle seen in a 
child's correcting wrong habits — Topics for investigation and 
discussion. 

CHAPTER IX 

Development of Coordinated Activities 122 

The incoordinated condition of the infant — Inherited coordi- 
nations — Central or fundamental movements predominate iu 
the beginning — The first stages in acquiring manual dexterity 

— The wave of development is toward the extremities — Force 
rather than delicate or precise manipulation — The development 
of pedal dexterity — The development of coordination in speech 

— The principle illustrated in the child's use of sentences — 
Preyer's observations on speech development — The order of 
losing coordinations in degeneration — Topics for investigation 
and discussion. 

CHAPTER X 

From Fundamental to Accessory in Education . . . 146 
The traditional view of fine coordinations in early education 
— The natural order is from fundamental to accessory — The 
doctrine of nascent periods — The appropriate time to develop 
any power — The danger of arrest in development — The evil 
of either tardiness or precocity in education — Judd on the 
development of peripheral activities — The doctrine summarized 

— Topics for investigation and discussion. 

CHAPTER XI 
RESUME 163 



PACK 



Xll CONTENTS 

PART II 

THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

CHAPTER XII 

ActivitV as requiring the Expenditure of Energy . .170 
The mind as the body's guest — Mind as matter — The ener- 
gic relation of mind and body — Familiar evidence that all 
activity expends nervous energy — Some physiological evidence 

— The theory of fatigue — Methods of investigation — Topics 
for investigation and discussion. 

CHAPTER XIII 

The Influence of Fatigue on the Efficiency of Mind and 

Body 188 

The nervous system as a storage battery — The effect of fatigue 
on muscular action — The effect of fatigue on motor coordination 

— Fatigue produces tension — Leaky nervous systems — The 
thrifty type — A simple method of testing individual differences 

— The effect of fatigue on attention — One cause of dullness 
in the school-room and outside — The effect of fatigue on the 
emotions — The benumbing of the highest faculties in fatigue 
— Topics for investigation and discussion. 

CHAPTER XIV 

Economy in the Expenditure of Energy • . . . .210 
The loss of energy in a machine — Loss in the human ma- 
chine from muscular tensions — Mental tension begets muscular 
tension — The hypochondriac — Americanitis — Adjusting effort 
to needs — James on " unclamping" — The reflex effect of bodily 
attitudes — Play as a restorative — Exercise should not require 
voluntary effort — Exercise for brain wforkers — The importance 
of nutrition — Dullness and irritability due to underfeeding — 
The nutrition of school children — Topics for investigation and 
discussion. 



CONTENTS XUl 

CHAPTER XV 

PAGE 

The Effect of ^Esthetic Influences upon Mental Tension . 230 
The fatigued teacher — Music hath charms — The pain and 
pleasure effects of every experience — How different forms affect 
us — The influence of color — The first consideration in school- 
room decoration — Topics for investigation and discussion. 

CHAPTER XVI 

Some Common Wasteful Practices 246 

Waste from excessively fine work — Waste in unhygienic 
writing — Concerning writing pens — Postures that lead to waste 
of energy — Danger of overstimulation — The teased child — 
The effect of noise — Topics for investigation and discussion. 

CHAPTER XVII 

The Eye in Relation to Nervous Waste 263 

The work of ocular muscles — Maladjustment of ocular mus- 
cles — Maladjustment of the lens — Dr. Gould on the effects 
of eye strain — The prevalence of eye defects — The wasteful- 
ness of reading excessively fine print — Defective vision as a 
cause of dullness and irritability — Topics for investigation and 
discussion. 

CHAPTER XVIII 

The Daily Programme in Relation to Nervous Waste . . 276 
Concerning overpressure in the schools — Less time in the 
schoolroom — Concentration for brief periods the requirement 
— Relaxation — Short exposure wdth strong stimulation — The 
sequence of studies — The result of studies by Lombard and 
Smedley — French regulations — Topics for investigation and 
discussion. 

CHAPTER XIX 

RESUMfe 297 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 301 

INDEX 313 



PART I 

THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 
CHAPTER I 

THE DEVELOPMENT OF INHIBITION 

It is a matter of common remark that the typical child children's 

lack of 

gives way easily to his feeUngs. His tears flow freely inhibition. 
upon the slightest pretext; he becomes hilarious over 
mere trifles; he gabbles incessantly when he ought to 
maintain silence; he flies into a passion whenever he is 
crossed ; and so one might go through with a long hst of 
excesses. Judging from what one hears and reads, the 
chief problem of most parents perhaps is to restrain these 
annoying expressions of the young. How frequently a 
mother says of her boys, "They will drive me to distrac- 
tion." Compared with ourselves our children seem im- 
pulsive, willful, heedless. They struggle with almost 
malicious persistence to carry on their own enterprises 
regardless of the desires of their governors. A sensitive 
adult, or one who craves quiet, may expect little peace 
in the company of children from two to ten, say, who have 
been indulged in their spontaneity. They will be con- 



2 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

tinually striving to perform tasks in emulation of their 
elders, for which they lack size or strength or ingenuity, 
and they will use every means at their command to secure 
help from those who can aid them. They will be run- 
ning here and there, jumping, climbing, pounding, throw- 
ing, shouting, handling everything novel within reach, 
teasing one another and every living thing from which 
they can get some reaction; in brief, a normal child is 
incessantly active in a muscular way, and much of this 
activity is not in accord with the demands of his en- 
vironment. 

Literature, and especially that of our own day, the day 
of stories and sketches of childhood,^ is replete with 
references to the restless hands and feet of childhood.^ 
Aristotle tells us that the child craves exercise of all his 
motor powers, and the same view in substance is taken 
by Plutarch, Quintilian, Rousseau, Locke, Pestalozzi, 
Froebel, Spencer, and their disciples. The character- 
istic of child life which stands out most prominently in 

^ What I have in mind here is the large amount of book and magazine 
literature about child life which has been appearing these past few years, 
— such as Graham's " The Golden Age " ; Nesbit's " The Would-Be- 
Goods " and " The Treasure Seekers " ; Martin's " Emmy Lou, Her 
Heart and Her Book " ; and stories similar in general plan by Josephine 
Dodge Daskam, Stephen Crane, R. R. Gilson, Mary E. Freeman, Eden 
Phillpotts, Ruth McEnery Stuart, N. A. White, Rudyard Kipling, et al. 

^ There is some good philosophy beneath the mirth of such pictures of 
child life as Hood gives us in his " Ode to an Infant Son," Habberton 
in his " Helen's Babies," and the like. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF INHIBITION 3 

the testimonies of modern students of the subject, such 
as Preyer, Dewey, Baldwin, Compayre, Sully, Hall, 
Moore, and many others is motor activity. They all find 
that the infant tends to be continually in action during 
most of his waking moments. As Baldwin putsit,^ "... 
the child acts, and act it must, on the first suggestion 
which has the faintest meaning in terms of its sensations 
of movement." Mr. Bell has kept a record of the activi- 
ties of his two children for a single day, and a paragraph 
or two from his report may help to impress the point here 
under consideration. He says,^ speaking of the speech 
activity of a normal five-year-old for one day: "When 
I counted the total number of words which the child had 
used, I was not surprised to find them footing up to 
14,996. 

"On July 8th, just one week later, a similar observa- 
tion was made upon the younger child. Her record for 
the day was a total of 15,230 words. Numerous observa- 
tions conducted upon different children for shorter periods 
lead me to the conviction that these records are not 
exceptionally large. 

1 " Mental Development, Methods and Processes," p. 5. 

2 Independent, Vol. 55, p. 911. Compare with Mr. Bell's record the 
observations which Mr. Dresslar made upon his child during a half day, 
— Ped. Sem., December, 1901, pp. 469-481. Here is one sentence from 
his conclusions : " External stimulus is immediately answered by motor 
activity, even though at first these responses are uncontrolled and pur- 
poseless." (Reprint, p. 12.) 



THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 



" As to the other activities involved in the day's record, 
I wish to say that although I followed each child about 
the house, barn, yard, garden, sidewalk, across the street 
to playmate's yard, swing, sandpile, etc., I went through 
fewer than one fifth of the number of movements of body, 
legs, arms, hands, feet, head, which the child under 
observation went through." ^ 

Shut a boy up in a room to keep him out of mischief, 
and if he has no opportunity to cHmb or to use the fur- 
niture for constructive purposes, or to use his hands in 
any way in making or drawing or destroying, then his 
energies will escape through his vocal organs, or he will 
simply pound on the floor or walls or turn somersaults. 
Should these latter activities be repressed, he will in due 
course fall asleep. An adult could content himself, or 
at least busy himself, with thinking, but not so with the 
five-year-old. " Before fifteen is the time for action ; 
after this will be time enough for reflection " — so nature 

^ Holmes has studied child nature, and he asks us to observe how the 
boy " loves to run, swim, kick football, turn somersets, make faces, 
whittle, fish, tear his clothes, coast, skate, fire crackers, blow squash 
' tooters,' cut his name on fences, read about Robinson Crusoe and Sin- 
bad the Sailor, eat the widest-angled slice of pie and untold cakes and 
candies, crack nuts with his back teeth and bite out the better part of 
another boy's apple with his front ones, turn up coppers, ' stick ' knives, 
call names, throw stones, knock off hats, set mousetraps, chalk door- 
steps, * cut behind ' anything on wheels or runners, whistle through his 
teeth, ' holler ' Fire ! on slight evidence, run after soldiers, patronize an 
engine company, or, in his own words, 'Blow for tub No. ii.'" — The 
Processor at the Breakfast Table, p. 224. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF INHIBITION 5 

seerns to say. One rarely detects children of a tender age 
deliberating upon a situation; he always finds them 
dynamic with reference to it. By eight, perhaps, this 
tendency to reflect, which means to review one's experience 
with situations resembhng that which now confronts the 
individual, and which summons him to action of some 
sort, — by eight, possibly earlier in some cases and later 
in others, this tendency is beginning to be manifested ; and 
it continues to gain in prominence and importance until 
maturity is attained. Development means, in large 
measure, the acquisition of experiences which in consider- 
able part function inhibitively upon original impulses and 
tendencies to immediate reaction upon stimuh. Bagley* 
expresses this view in other terms when he says that educa- 
tion is "the process by means of which the individual 
acquires experiences that will function in rendering more 
efficient his future action." 

At the outset the child acts largely for the pleasure 
of action as an end in itself, though the desire to excel and 
the joy in being a cause doubtless play a part in all his 
activities. When children begin to use a hammer, for 
instance, they pound away, not with the aim of making 
anything in particular, or even hitting a nail. The con- 
sciousness of being able to direct the hammer upon a box, 
or the floor even, is sufficient reward in the beginning. 
Try to get a child of three, say, to confine his pounding to 
^"The Educative Process," p. 22. 



6 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

driving nails, and you will find he is not ready for such 
specific and coordinated, or better differentiated, action. 
The aim of making something, of achieving a definite end 
in his action, cannot yet control his spontaneity to any 
marked extent. His muscles at this stage of development 
have a certain measure of independence and initiative; 
they have not yet become the obedient servants of the 
mind. In the course of development, ends which the 
individual desires to attain will come to determine all his 
activities ; mere spontaneous muscular action will become 
subordinated to ideas, speaking in current phraseology; 
but it is otherwise at the start. 
Restraint One who has observed children even casually must have 

comes with . , , 11 • i i • 

development, noticed that as development proceeds the penod during 
which motor action may be and habitually is restrained is 
gradually increased.^ From five or six years on, children 
who have the opportunity spend a considerable part of 
their time in hearing and reading stories and enjoying 
pictures ; and they may even sit quietly in their seats and 
"learn their lessons." It is probable, though, that the 
mental states estabhshed by a story or a picture tend to 
become reahzed readily in appropriate action. The whole 

^ Of course, children differ greatly in the rapidity with which they de- 
velop inhibition. V., a boy, is much less restrained at seven than H., his 
sister, was at that age. The so-called motor type of person does not 
acquire inhibition as readily or as completely as the so-called sensory or 
mental type. Cf. Baldwin, "Inland Educator," Vol. II, pp. 126-129; 
Vol. Ill, pp. 232-235. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF INHIBITION 7 

organism is doubtless affected in characteristic ways, at 
least by those parts of any story that depict vital situations, 
regarded from the child's standpoint. A situation would 
not be regarded as vital if there were no marked organic 
ejBfects produced in contemplating it. Fere ^ maintains 
that the whole body "thinks" when the brain is in action. 
Contemplation at any rate imphes more than seeing or 
hearing or imaging in a narrow sense ; it implies that the 
child gains an appreciation of what the eye and ear give, 
and what images mean, because of certain effects which 
these exert upon vital function. In telhng H., during her 
fifth year, the story of Bluebeard, I could observe that her 
respiration was always affected at the tragical moments. 
Her muscles became rigid when I reached the place where 
the door was opened into the secret closet, and we got a 
sight of the remains of the women who had been killed 
there. And this is typical, I think, of much that may be 
observed in childhood, if one will look for it. With de- 
velopment this organic response, hke so much else in 
human nature, gets subdued, checked down, generahzed 
perhaps, but it probably never wholly disappears. 

As soon as children begin to appreciate a picture or 
interpret the language of a story they try to "act out "more 
or less completely what they see and hear. Tell a child 
of three or four the story of the Three Bears, and he will 
be likely to growl as he imagines they do; he will show 

^ " Sensation et Mouvement," p. 25. 



8 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

you how Silver Hair ran, how the bears ate the porridge, 
and the Uke. So he will bark Hke the dogs in his stories, 
puff Hke the steam engines, run on all fours as the cats 
and other quadrupeds do, and so on ad libitum. I could 
not mention a dog in any connection in the presence of S. 
when he had reached his nineteenth month without his 
barking and otherwise exhibiting the behavior of the 
animal as he had had experience with it, either actually 
or in the representations of his elders. So any allusion 
to a steam engine would not fail to set his arms and legs 
and lungs in motion after the pattern of the engine, as he 
thought. I have many notes relating to the manner in 
which a group of young people reacted upon such a word 
as "jump" in a story concerning children, or even animals, 
in play. Though they might apparently be attending in 
other directions when they heard it, they would neverthe- 
less often wish to show me how it was done. It is probable 
that appreciation always involves more or less complete 
execution in the beginning; but with development the 
motor processes, in dealing with many familiar situations, 
decline; and the same is true of the distinct conscious 
processes. Development always secures abridgment or 
condensation of the detailed processes in all oft-repeated 
experiences.^ 

^ I have worked out this thought further in my " Education as Ad- 
justment," Chap. XI. See also Bagley, op. cit.. Chap. IX, and Judd, 
" Genetic Psychology for Teachers," Chap. II. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF INHIBITION 9 

It should be recognized in this connection that those 
words only will set up marked motor responses in children 
that relate to activities which they are learning, or perhaps 
practicing at the time. When they get certain adjust- 
ments thoroughly mastered they seem not to be so eager 
to rehearse them except when the needs of adjustment 
demand it. Or possibly there may be a momentary im- 
pulse to act them out, but other interests have become 
more important and prevent the attention from remaining 
on the old famihar actions. The energy may be drawn 
off into other channels that represent newer acquisitions. 
This doubtless accounts for the phenomenon observed by 
Munsterberg and Campbell,^ that the motor power of 
ideas decreases with the lapse of time. But the point to 
be impressed here is that a child will actually perform 
those activities which at the time are of supreme interest 
to him, which he is striving to possess himself of, if they 
be suggested in his stories or his pictures. It is worthy of 
note that children from the second year on for several 
years will allow no one to relieve them of doing anything 
relatively novel. They insist upon feeding themselves, 
dressing themselves, making their own playthings, open- 
ing all packages that come to the house, and so on. When 
any of these processes have become thoroughly mastered, 
though, there seems to be less desire on the part of the 

1 See " The Motor Power of Ideas," Psych. Rev., 1894. Vol. I, 
pp. 441 flf. 



lO THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

child to continue to perform them. At six or thereabouts 
he is willing and even anxious to have some one button his 
shoes and clothing, cut his meat, run errands for him, and 
the like. 

Is it possible that the principle here in question is opera- 
tive at every stage of development? Do adults practice 
actions in which they are genuinely interested, or which 
may be those they are learning ? We are not greatly im- 
pressed with this tendency in mature life, because we have 
lost real, vital interest in all the ordinary activities suggested 
to us by our reading and our art. These activities can for 
the most part be performed easily, perhaps subconsciously, 
and it is of no advantage for us to practice them, for the 
sake merely of making their execution certain and facile. 
But take an adult who goes to live for a time in a strange 
country where the manners of the people are more or less 
novel, and he desires to adopt them as soon as possible — 
will he tend to rehearse these manners whenever he reads 
of them or sees them performed ? One who goes to study 
at a German University, for instance, will for a time be 
more or less eager in "trying on" the peculiarities of Ger- 
man student Hfe. The customs of the people will occupy 
a relatively important place in consciousness, and they 
will easily get possession of the motor routes. This is, of 
course, the only way in which he can become adapted to 
his new environments. The habits of his former Hfe will 
not fit into his new surroundings, and so consciousness is 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF INHIBITION 11 

called in to inhibit the old processes and establish new 
ones/ These latter will be repeated until they may be 
depended upon, when they will be given over to the con- 
trol of suggestion. This principle is well illustrated in an 
adult learning to speak a foreign language. He keeps 
vocahzing the new words he hears until their execution 
becomes largely automatic, when he ceases to practice them. 
One may gain a useful lesson if he will read KipHng's 
" Jungle Book," say, to a group of children ranging from 
four years to nine or ten, and observe their reactions. The 
younger children will probably be constantly imitating the 
simpler actions mentioned, while the ten-year-olds will 
listen, as we say, keeping motor reaction in check more or 
less completely, as though they were organizing the images 
being gained now with others which they have gained 
from other stories. They have doubtless passed, to a cer- 
tain extent, the barking and growling and crawling and 
jumping and climbing and scratching periods. It is as 
though the various organs and muscles involved in these 
activities had learned how to perform them, and had no 
object now in practicing them.^ Energy must be saved 

1 This is, I think, becoming a famiUar notion in modern psychology. 
For a recent presentation of the view, see Dewey, et al., " Studies in Log- 
ical Theory"; Angell, "Psychology"; and "Habit and Attention," 
Psych. Rev., Vol. Ill, pp. 245 S. and Vol. V, pp. 179 £f. 

^ Russell, in his " Imitation and Allied Activities," gives a large number 
of instances illustrating the general principle in question here, — the 
change which takes place with development in the child's mimetic 
activities. 



12 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

for drilling on the activities that are new. It would not 
be quite right, though, to say that the older children did 
not react at all upon the stories. After the reading they 
will probably dramatize the principal scenes, personating 
the animals mentioned, and behaving as they think 
proper in their assumed personahties. They are inter- 
ested now in working out the jungle situation as a ', hole, 
rather than in the performance of simple activities as 
single and isolated acts. 

If we pass on from the ten-year-old to the college student 
we shall find that the latter will attend to the story ; and 
while there may be motor reverberations throughout his 
organism, still there will be little manifested outwardly, 
as in the personation of a Hon, for instance. The college 
student has, through past experience, gained an apprecia- 
tion of the jungle situations through imitating them, and 
he is not now incited to try them. His organism has at 
the appropriate time taken on the forms of jungle life; 
and now it must be concerned with getting the feehng of 
new forms of political, social, and religious life presented 
in his environment. The college student is learning 
through imitating and dramatizing just as is the grammar 
grade student, only he is concerned with relatively very 
complex social activities. He has his circle of interests, 
as has the child, wherein he is practicing activities that are 
of vital import to him, because they are required for com- 
plete adjustment to his social environment. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF INHIBITION 1 3 

Considered from the neurological standpoint, inhibition The neurolog- 
ical view of 
of an action is secured mainly by using up in other ways inhibition. 

the energy which is needed for its support. An individual 
will then acquire the power to restrain certain actions 
according as he develops new ways, either motor or men- 
tal, of utilizing his forces.^ At the outset his possibiHties 
are so limited that action occurs within a very circum- 
scribed area. And if he cannot employ his energies fully 
in accomphshing simple motor tasks of some kind, he 
will become "restless." Ask a child of four or five years 
to sit perfectly still and fold his arms. Try as hard as he 
may he will nevertheless soon begin to move around in his 
seat, or swing his legs, or he will at least show unusual 
muscular tensions in his face and arms and body as a 
whole. When lively children are commanded to sit per- 
fectly still, automatic movements of head, face, eyes, 
hands, legs, mouth, and shoulders may often be noted 
after several minutes of effort. In the case of V. at five 
some of these automatisms would usually appear after a 
very brief period of trying to restrain all motor activity. 
H. and S. could endure the tension for a longer time, 
but even they showed considerable disturbance after 
a few minutes of constraint. Curtis ^ declares that chil- 
dren of four cannot inhibit all activity for the space of 
a minute ; but older children can restrain themselves for a 

^ Cf. Royce, " Outlines of Psychology," pp. 70-80. 
^ See his " Inhibition," Fed. Sent., Vol. VI, p. 93. 



14 ■ THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

somewhat longer period, depending in part upon age, and 
in part upon individual capacity. 

In general it may be said that the less elaborate the men- 
tal processes the greater the proportion of energy that will 
escape through motor channels; while the more elaborate 
the mental processes the more completely will the energies 
be utilized in thinking, speaking popularly.^ It is a ques- 
tion primarily of the manner of utiUzing nervous energy.^ 

1 Cf. McDougall, " Inhibition," Brain, Summer, 1903, pp. 153-192. 
Also James, "Talks to Teachers," etc.. Chap. XV; King, "Psychology 
of Childhood," Chap. IX; and Warner, "The Nervous System of the 
Child," Chap. X. 

2 " In the lower animals, every feeling or idea has an immediate motor 
expression which gets executed to a greater or less degree. In man many 
of these expressions fall short of complete execution. They are sup- 
pressed, and we are able to trace them, or find their existence only in 
rudimentary form — in mere tendencies to act. Civilization and culture 
tend to modify and refine the expression of the motor innervation accom- 
panying thought. In the child the natural and direct expression of its 
thoughts are least repressed, spontaneity is greatest ; gradually, however, 
as the simplicity of its mental Ufe develops into more manifoldness and 
complexity there is a general leveling tendency manifested in the motor 
expression of ideas. At the same time there is an increase in the number, 
variability, and accuracy of motor expressions. This increase is parallel 
to the development of consciousness. In terms of brain physiology this 
repression of outward and visible expressions may find its explanation 
in the increased number of associated centers, whose activity means the 
transference of stimuli into a larger number of motor channels, thus 
modifying or even suppressing each other's action. In the child, before 
associations are formed to any extent, a stimulus may affect a small 
cortical area or a single center only. Later, when the center has formed 
connections with a number of associated centers, the same stimulus may 
call up through these centers various motor innervations which are 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF INHIBITION 1 5 

Inhibition, in the sense in which I am speaking of it, re- 
quires for one thing the draining of the motor areas to 
support activity in sensory and associative regions. This 
implies on the mental side that one can entertain ideas 
that do not relate directly and immediately to situations 
demanding motor reaction. A philosopher, for example, 
is attending so constantly to "abstract" matters that 
motor activity is almost entirely inhibited, at least for long 
periods at a time ; though in the end it is possible his re- 
flections may issue in some form of action.^ Now, if the 
child of five could suddenly become possessed of the 
philosopher's range of attention he would be as suddenly 
transformed from a motor into a mental being. But 
nature does not work according to this method in the 
sphere of human development. 

antagonistic, and so neutralize or modify each other. The more complex 
the mental side — i.e. the greater the number — and the more diversi- 
fied the locality of simultaneously excited centers, the less are the chances 
for a direct and simple act. Breese, on " Inhibition," Psych. Rev.^ 
Monograph Supplement, Vol. 3, 1899-1901, p. 61. 

^ I am not so confident as many in our day seem to be, that in the end 
all reflection leads to action in one's own life. It seems possible that 
some men may reflect, and others, perhaps their descendants, at any rate 
not themselves, may be guided by their reflections. Plato and Aristotle 
and Kant and Hegel were probably less influenced themselves in their 
conduct by their own reflections than have been some of the generations 
since their time. The social organism is so constituted that some of its 
members may give themselves to reflection, while others put their con- 
clusions into execution. Doubtless the goal of all thinking is action; 
but it is not imperative for either individual or social well-being that 
the circle should be completed in any one individual life, or even in any 
one generation. 



1 6 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

It is not to be supposed from what has just been said 
that the extension of the range of attention is a psychical 
matter pure and simple. You may place a child of three, 
say, in certain situations which set up complicated in- 
tellectual processes in your own case, but he may be quite 
unable to attend to the things which may engage your 
attention for a long period. To illustrate, I have often 
attempted to get very young children to attend to verbal 
forms which I would write on a blackboard or on a piece 
of paper, and which older children would "study" with 
much success. But while the three-year-old would follow 
me while I was making these forms, he could not attend 
successfully to the forms themselves. Such a child will 
probably catch a general impression, as of a white some- 
thing on a dark background, or vice versa; but he does not 
grasp the characteristics of the words as individual things. 
His attention is not sufficiently specialized or differentiated 
for this. He can appreciate only very general or funda- 
mental characteristics in objects of this kind. It is the 
same with spoken language. The infant long responds 
to the quaUty of a voice — the timbre and intonation — 
before he can even attend to articulated language. The 
latter demands speciahzed or differentiated attention, as 
compared with the former. Again, the principle holds in 
the reproduction of verbal form. The child of three 
has perfect control of his hand in the execution of an 
elaborate repertoire of manual activities, but you cannot 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF INHIBITION 1 7 

teach him to write words with any success. He cannot 
particularize his attention as required to perform this 
special task. So with speech: he can by two years of 
age probably make separately and spontaneously all the 
sounds in the language, but he cannot coordinate them into 
the spoken language used about him, except in respect 
of the simplest and least complicated combinations. 

Now this differentiation in attention as development 
proceeds is doubtless dependent upon the development 
of the cerebral cortex. It is known to-day that there is a 
particular region of the general visual areas differentiated 
to retain impressions of verbal form. One may become 
mentally blind for words, but still be able to recognize 
persons and objects. So the child may learn people and 
things long before he can learn words, probably be- 
cause the general visual areas develop before those more 
speciaUzed; and the principle apphes doubtless to the 
development of all areas. What is elemental and general 
in function appears before that which is particular or 
specialized. The impHcation of this principle is that the 
infant while being able to construct visual images of per- 
sons and objects as we use the term is still unable to con- 
struct images of verbal form except in respect of the 
simplest factors of these forms. He would, then, lack alto- 
gether large classes of images within the possession of the 
adult, which means that his attention, and so his power of 
self-restraint, must be just to this extent narrow and lim- 



l8 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

ited as compared with the adult.^ His images without 
question relate at first almost if not quite wholly to ob- 
jects and situations with reference to which something 
must be done at once; appreciation without reaction is 
for him impossible. 

The current conception of the development of the brain 
as a whole strongly reenforces the view gained from ob- 
servation of children, — that a young and immature indi- 
vidual must be relatively impulsive and uncontrolled. 
According to contemporary neurological theory, as ex- 
pounded by Flechsig,^ Mercier,^ Donaldson,* and others, 
the brain is so organized at the outset that all paths lead 
quite directly to the motor regions. Stimulate a young 
child in almost any way and you will be Ukely to get an 
immediate response. Whatever energy is set free by 
sensory activity is probably expended in motor reaction. 
But with development the energy liberated in sensory 
areas is ever more largely deflected from the original paths 
and carried through "higher" centers in which are re- 
tained the images deposited by experience. Then again, 

^ Cf. with this the theory of Lloyd Morgan (Psych. Rev., March-May, 
19051 PP- 79 ff-) that control comes about through differentiation by 
experience of control centers from automatic and instinctive centers. 
Then in the process of development comes ideational constructions of 
logical, ethical, or aesthetic worth that constantly play down upon lower 
centers, regulating and holding them in check. 

2 See his " Gehirn und Seele." 

' See his " The Nervous System and the Mind," especially Chaps. 
V and VI. 

* " The Growth of the Brain," especially Chap. XVIII. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF INHIBITION 19 

as the associative functions of the brain mature, any one 
impression gets connected up with an ever increasing body 
of experiences which reenforce or check its tendency to 
issue in action according as the outcome in the past has 
been agreeable or otherwise. In the beginning the child 
acts, and thinks afterwards; but with development these 
processes are turned around. Psychologically this seems 
simple enough: the infant must act in order to gain a 
knowledge of the values of things, but as he discovers these 
values he uses his knowledge to guide his future action. 
Conduct, then, must be precipitous, impulsive, unrestrained 
at the outset, else the child would never act at all. Con- 
trol must follow and grow right out of spontaneity. Mus- 
cles must dominate in the early years in order that the 
later ones may be characterized by deliberate, purposeful, 
controlled action. 

The motor character of the child's life is exhibited even 
in his sleep. Keep watch of a young child during the 
night, and you will hardly fail to be impressed with the 
large amount of vocal and digital and bodily activity 
which you will observe. Curtis reports that above seventy- 
five per cent of those who made observations for him upon 
the restlessness of children during sleep detected move- 
ments of various sorts. The hands were kept in action, 
the hmbs were made tense, there was a good deal of rolling 
over, finger twitching, opening and shutting of the mouth, 
moving of eyeUds, sucking the thumb, and so on. These 



20 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

phenomena indicate how easily the nervous energy of the 
child finds its way to his muscles, even though the needs 
of adaptation at the moment do not call for motor activity ; 
and if the parent and teacher and lawmaker do not pro- 
vide for the expenditure of these energies in legitimate and 
educative ways, then trouble is bound to ensue, alike for 
the individual and for society. 

In what has been said thus far it has been the aim to 
show that in the early years motor activity is excessive, 
but as development proceeds the brakes are thrown on, 
and when maturity is reached mental activity gains as- 
cendency. As mental complexity increases motor excess 
Suggestions decreases. It is worth while in this connection to note 
the%hen^- that in degeneracy there is a falling back over the route by 
eration. which the individual ascended during his developmental 

career. The poise and control by which a mature person 
adjusts himself in happy relations to a complex environ- 
ment are earliest lost in nervous disintegration.^ The effect 
is seen first in lessened restraint of motor action. The 
tongue is less restrained, for one thing. Then the egotistic 
impulses manifest themselves more readily in anger, in 
selfishness, in sensuousness, and in every form. It is 
well known to alienists that a prominent effect of insanity 
is seen in the tendency of the patient to react upon situa- 
tions without due deliberation. Stimuli produce response 

^ Cf., for instance, Bancroft, "Automatic Muscular Movements 
among the Insane," Am. Journ. of Psych., Vol. Ill, p. 437. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF INHIBITION 21 

SO quickly that experience counts for little, and instinct 
comes to the front again. Hall/ in his study of anger, 
points out that irritability, one of the earlier effects of men- 
tal disturbance, is caused by the weakening of the in- 
hibitory powers so that the victim becomes the creature 
of any morbid impulses which may be suggested. Some 
forms of insanity are characterized by this almost entire 
lack of inhibitory power, so that primitive, anti-social 
tendencies run riot in the individual's life. 

In the hypnotic state, too, ideas find expression in action 
almost immediately. In this condition all the inhibitions 
on original impulses exercised by one's experiences, his 
teaching, his ideals, are rendered inoperative. Hypnotism 
thus seems to destroy the inhibitory powers of the cerebral 
mechanism, and we see the individual in his original estate 
of motor supremacy. Every one doubtless starts out in 
life with an equipment of instinctive tendencies, the re- 
mains of ancestral Ufe, and these in the process of develop- 
ment usually come under control. In health these, abid- 
ing with the individual in the lower regions of the soul, are 
kept permanently in leash. But when degeneracy sets in, 
and the higher functions of the brain are impaired, the 
power of inhibition is reduced, and one becomes the 
creature of his passions and criminal propensities.* 

1 Am. Journ. of Psych., Vol. X, p. 589. 

* An interesting case cited by Bateman (" Aphasia and the Localiza- 
tion of the Faculty of Speech," p. 189) shows that impressions made 
upon the nervous organism at one time may be kept from motor realiza- 



22 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

This phenomenon of descent from control and inhibition 
to a state where impulses manifest themselves unchecked 
is seen in inebriety, a form of degeneracy. Wilson ^ tells 
us that the typical drunkard is irritable, petulant, peevish, 
and indeed has quite lost control of himself. He is ex- 
ceedingly disagreeable to live with because he cannot 

tion through the inhibitory force of the environment, but in nervous 
disease, when inhibition is impaired, they may become manifest. "In 
a CathoUc town in Germany," he says, " a young woman of four or five 
and twenty, who could neither read nor write, was seized with a nervous 
fever, during which she continued incessantly talking Latin, Greek, and 
Hebrew, in very pompous tones, and with most distinct enunciation. 

"The case had attracted the particular attention of a young physician, 
and by his statement many eminent physiologists and psychologists 
visited the town, and cross-examined the case on the spot. Sheets full 
of her ravings were taken down from her mouth, and were found to con- 
sist of sentences, coherent and intelligible each for itself, but with little 
or no connection with each other. Of the Hebrew a small portion only 
could be traced to the Bible, the remainder seemed to be in the rabbinical 
dialect. 

"All trick or conspiracy was out of the question; not only had the 
young woman been a harmless, simple creature, but she was evidently 
laboring under a nervous fever. Inquiries having been made as to the 
antecedents of this girl, it was ascertained that she had formerly lived as 
a servant to an old Protestant pastor, a very learned man, and a great 
Hebrew scholar. It had been the custom of this worthy divine to walk 
up and down a passage of his house into which the kitchen door opened, 
and to read to himself, with a loud voice, out of his favorite books, which 
consisted of rabbinical writings, together with several of the Greek and 
Latin fathers; from these works so many passages were identified with 
those taken down at the young woman's bedside that no doubt could 
remain concerning the true origin of the impressions made on her nervous 
system." 

^ See his volume on " Drunkenness." 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF INHIBITION 23 

properly control his egoistic emotions. He has lost the 
"virtues that make for peace and happiness." His power 
of attention is lessened; he cannot concentrate his mind 
fully upon any object ; he cannot hold himself persistently 
to any task — just such characteristics as we find in the 
child. He is not so good in his judgments ; he is rash or 
timid in his enterprises; he is unable to "direct the bal- 
ance of probabiHties" ; his actions are not adapted to the 
occasions which call them forth; he is, in short, out of 
ahgnment with his environment. 

It is a matter of common observation, too, that self- 
control, as we say, is often partially destroyed in fatigue. 
Here as in other forms of nervous degeneracy the highest 
and most complex regions are first affected, and they lose 
their hold upon the lower centers in which abide the 
primitive impulses and instincts, according to modern 
theory.^ Most people when overstrained are "not them- 
selves " ; httle things annoy them and produce excessive 
reaction, when in fairer weather they would be able to 
keep their minds on something more pleasing. Hot words 
usually come at such a time. When one is in good repair 
he can restrain himself ; he can call to his aid many con- 
siderations which will be too powerful for the lower 
impulses, and so will keep them down. 

^ See the author's " Aspects of Mental Economy," Chap. I, where 
this subject is worked out in some detail. 



24 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 



TOPICS FOR INVESTIGATION AND DISCUSSION 

1. One often hears a parent say of a young child, "He is 
thoughtless; if I tell him not to do a thing he may do it the 
next moment, and without intending to disobey me." Have 
you observed this to be true of children in general? What is 
the explanation ? 

2. Discuss the common saying that "A child should be seen 
and not heard." 

3. Compare children who are very active in a motor way 
with children of the same age who are very quiet ; which group 
is the brighter? Which group stands the highest in the work 
of the school ? Why ? 

4. Study a school in which the teacher attempts to suppress 
all motor activity ; do you think the children progress unusually 
rapidly in their studies ? Do they seem happy in their work ? 

5. Can you develop self-control in children by command- 
ing them simply to keep still? Give definite psychological 
reasons for your answer. 

6. Have you ever known a child to develop self-restraint 
gradually without very much being said to him directly about 
keeping quiet? If so, just what experiences did he have that 
brought about self-control? 

7. Is it a bad or a good sign for a boy of five or six or seven 
years of age to be "restless," in the sense that he strives con- 
stantly to find motor employment of some sort? Discuss the 
matter in detail. 

8. Many people beheve that a school is well governed 
when pupils sit quietly in their seats, memorizing their lessons. 
Is this your view ? If not, say when a school is well disciplined. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF INHIBITION 25 

9. Should a pupil exercise greater motor restraint in the 
high school than he did in the elementary school? Why? 

10. If you can possibly do so, read, or better still, tell a 
story full of action to children of different ages, and note 
whether the response is the same in all cases. If the response 
is different, explain it by reference to some principle of mental 
development. 



CHAPTER II 



DYNAMIC EDUCATION 



There is a growing conviction among teachers, and to 
a certain extent among parents and citizens, that much 
purposeful muscular action is essential to the proper 
development of the young. The ancient ideal of a static 
education, which put the learner of life's ways in a seat 
and kept him there during his growing years, with folded 
arms and poring over his book — this ideal seems to be 
passing in most progressive communities among us. It 
is true, of course, that the old order is still maintained in 
some or all of its features in many of the schools of the 
present ^ ; and one must acknowledge, also, that there are 

^ I have had opportunity to observe for a number of years the develop- 
ment of two families where different methods of training the young are 
followed. The five children in the first family have been continually 
repressed; they have been taught to sit still, and not to speak until they 
have been spoken to. They are compelled to be quiet in the house and 
they are forbidden to play on the street. Their parents never think of 
indulging in a game with them. They are provided with no materials 
at home or at school by which they can indulge the constructive instinct. 
The parents are guided solely by the static ideal of good behavior. 

In the other home the training is quite different. Spontaneity is 
indulged. The father and mother and governess themselves help to 
carry forward the enterprises of the young ones. Various devices are 

26 



DYNAMIC EDUCATION 27 

Still left some eminent defendants of the static regime^ 
who see little if any value in motor activities in the school- 
room. But while there are these conservatives in the 
educational camp, nevertheless students of human nature, 
such as James, Hall, Dewey, Mosso, Wundt, Baldwin, 
and others, are preaching a new gospel. They are saying 
that the child's thought is never dissociated from his 

invented to counteract the unfavorable conditions of the city, so that the 
children may dig in the sand and climb and build and reproduce in 
various ways the activities which go on about them. 

The effect of these different modes of training is apparent in the con- 
duct of the children. In the first family, the children " behave them- 
selves " better than in the second. They " keep still " and " let things 
alone." Whenever they are thrown in with other children, though, they 
appear ill at ease, and often spend their time merely looking at others 
who are doing things. They seem quite reserved, timid, resourceless. 
Their faces show lack of originality, independence, freedom. But some 
of the neighbors say they are " well trained," " well disciplined," because 
they are not getting into mischief constantly. 

The children of the second family, however, are active in any situation 
in which they may be placed. They conduct themselves as though the 
world existed to furnish them occasion for activity. They are never at 
a loss for something to do. The neighbors speak of them, though, as 
noisy and ungoverned, because they will not sit still and gaze at the world. 
Their parents find consolation in the belief that as they increase in ex- 
perience they will have less desire to be testing everything. They expect 
them to grow more thoughtful and so more restrained. Already, indeed, 
the eldest child of nine spends of her own accord several hours every day 
over her story books and drawing and writing and various manual 
activities. 

^ See, for instance, Miinsterberg, ^alantic Monthly, May, 1900. See 
also an article by Briggs, Atlantic Monthly, October, 1900. Happily 
writings of this character are not met with frequently in these times. 



28 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

muscles; that every idea has a motor aspect; that mind 
is in one sense a middle term between the senses and the 
muscles; that it functions for the purpose of guiding 
conduct; that an idea is not complete until it is reaHzed 
in action. Then the child must learn the world by deal- 
ing with it in a motor way. A seat fastened to the floor 
is ill-suited to his nature and needs. When he is kept 
in it a large part of his time his mind grows but slowly 
and imperfectly, and he suffers injury in his whole being.* 
Instead of learning his letters at five he should be learning 
the flowers and birds and streams and woods and fields 
in his environment. He should be learning to use a knife 
and a saw and a hammer. He should be working in his 
sand pile, and playing games with his fellows. In short, 
he should be doing under wise guidance ^ rather than mem- 
orizing words divorced from action. These are the views 
which are being passed along the educational line to-day. 
We have seen that in the development of the individual 
the natural order is from motor to mental supremacy, 

^ See Chase, " Neuro-Muscular Development," Elementary School 
Teacher, June, 1904. See also Judd, " Action as a Condition of Mental 
Growth," Am. Phys. Ed. Rev., 1901, Vol. VI, pp. 199 ff. 

^ " Instead of allowing the bodily activities which express themselves 
in the motor apparatus to shift for themselves, I would have them as 
carefully trained, and in as systematic a manner, as the so-called faculties 
of the mind. I would have as great efforts made to help the child sys- 
tematize his acts as is now made to induce him to systematize his thoughts. 
I would hold it as important for the child's development that he learn to 
do as to learn to think. I would not have the school inhibit, but rather 
direct, the motor activity of children." — Breese, op. cit., p. 64. 



DYNAMIC EDUCATION 29 

and we should expect that education would best follow Theneeaof 

exercising 

this order. The younger the child the greater the need cerebral 

motor areas. 

of giving him an opportunity to freely use his hands and 
feet and voice in educative ways. We are led to this 
view from whatever standpoint we regard the matter. 
Donaldson/ speaking for the neurologists, maintains 
that the development of the higher regions of the brain 
requires that the motor areas should be first exercised in 
an educational manner, since they are the first to function. 
If they are permitted to he fallow, the higher areas which 
are in some measure dependent upon them can never be 
completely developed. It is pointed out that imbecility 
is manifested first in arrest of motor development. The 
idiot has relatively imperfect control of his muscles. He 
does not react vigorously upon the world about him, and 
he rarely develops the abihty to perform intricate or 
sustained motor tasks. In training the feeble-minded • 
Seguin ^ always began with the muscles ; and he found 
that as the defective individual gained in motor power 
he gained also in mental acumen. But Seguin never 
had much success in training an imbecile when he pro- 
ceeded according to the static plan. 

Viewed now from the psychological standpoint it ap- 
pears that muscular experiences are essential to the gain- 
ing of clear, definite, effective ideas of the world. Action, 

1 See his " The Growth of the Brain," Chap. XVIII, especially p. 355. 

2 See his " Idiocy and its Treatment by the Physiological Method." 



30 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

as Judd says/ is a condition of mental growth. To 
know a thing means in part that one understands what 
can be done with it in a muscular way.^ Thus I do not 
know a horse in any complete manner until I have tried 
to manage him — measured my muscles against his, and 
had vital relations with him. Simply looking at him can 
not give me effective knowledge regarding him. I see 
a group of children tusshng every day with several dogs, 
and the knowledge they are gaining in this way is valu- 
able because it informs them respecting the characteris- 

^ See the Am. Phys. Ed. Rev., 1901, Vol. VI, pp. 199-203. 

^ " When in the presence of familiar objects, such as our pen, our 
watch, our knife, our dictionary, or our bunch of keys, if we examine 
the images that these objects awaken in us as we observe them, we may 
often find images of a more or less obviously motor type — images which 
take the form of tendencies to conceive to ourselves certain familiar acts 
which these objects call up in our minds. Thus the pen may arouse the 
image of grasping the pen for the purpose of writing, the knife may sug- 
gest cutting, and so on. In brief, the whole normal life of our imagina- 
tion has a most intimate connection with our conduct, and should not be 
studied apart from conduct. The central processes which our images 
accompany form themselves a part of our reaction to our environment, 
and our more organized series of mental images actually form part of our 
conduct. This aspect of the matter is one which mar.y psychological 
studies of our mental imagery lead us altogether too much to neglect. 
And many teachers suppose that to train the imagination of children 
involves something quite different from training their motor processes. 
But the normal imagination of healthy children is likely to get a rich 
expression in the form of their plays, of their dramatic impersonations, 
of their story-telling, and of their questions about things. And the most 
wholesome training of the imagination is properly to be carried out in 
connection with the training of conduct." — Royce, " Outlines of Psy- 
chology," p. 159. 



DYNAMIC EDUCATION 3I 

tics of these objects, and their own power and capacity 
in relation to them. Suppose a child had only eye- 
knowledge of a dog ; what would it be worth to him? 
Muscular knowledge was fundamental in the race, and 
it is the basis of all true learning in the individual. Eye- 
and ear-knowledge has been grafted upon this fundamental 
thing in the evolution of the race, and it mlist be grafted 
upon it in the development of the child. 

Again, effective learning not only of objects as such, but 
of activities as well, requires the use of the muscles. Sense 
impressions are extremely hazy and indefinite, to say the 
best, until they have been defined by vital contact with 
the objects yielding them.^ A child cannot gain a true 
conception of a blacksmith as a pecuHar sort of individual 
until he has more or less fully reproduced his peculiar 
activities.'* To comprehend what a blacksmith is in his 
peculiar function requires that one imitate him in his 
special work. Mere reading about him or gazing at him 
from afar off gives no adequate knowledge of him. Know- 
ing an object requires kinaesthetic as well as auditory or 
visual data concerning it. Indeed, to be precise, knowl- 
edge in the true sense comes from the hack stroke, as 

^ Cf. Breese, op. cit., p. 60. 

^ " Here we find an explanation of the fact that the boy who gains the 
ability to perform bodily adjustments in a decided, accurate, and rapid 
manner is better able to think accurately and clearly, and why a hesitating 
and ineffective bodily reaction is the accompaniment of a weakened or 
confused state of mind." — Breese, op. cit., p. 65. 



32 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

Bolton says. Motor activity furnishes consciousness 
with most important elements for psychical development, 
so that "mental development and motor power go hand 
in hand." ^ One knows what a thing is after he has re- 
acted upon it, not before. The mission of eye and ear 
is to give us second-hand or inferential knowledge, to 
reinstate former experience ; they cannot give us original, 
first-hand knowledge of many of the vital situations of 
Ufa. 

It should be recognized, though, that if the child has had 
experiences hke those of the blacksmith, he will, when he 
looks at him now, have these revived more or less fully. 
It happens, then, that in the process of development there 
is less and less need of the actual repetition of certain ac- 
tivities observed, except when the immediate needs of 
adjustment demand it. We see the child of two, say, 
incessantly imitating simple activities that go on about 
him until he can perform them readily, when he gradually 
abandons them and takes up something new. The 
original activities are not forgotten, but they do not have 
to be executed in full in order that the individual may 
comprehend them. The sense factor reinstates enough 
motor and organic accompaniments to give a feeling of 
famiharity or understanding. 

It seems as though the child is so constituted that when 

^ Bolton, "The Relation of Motor Power to Intelligence," /4w. Journ. 
of Psych., Vol. XIV, p. 353. 



DYNAMIC EDUCATION ;^^ 

he beholds an action at all closely related to the circle of 
activities in which he is interested at the time he must 
execute it in his own conduct. The action seems to urge 
itself out into his own motor processes. If it is quite new 
it encounters resistance and so the child must give himself 
fully to it. When it has been wrought out, however, it 
gradually gets repeated more and more easily by the 
imitator, until it can be reproduced as a sort of echo. But 
it would manifestly be a disadvantage if, at every period 
of life, one was compelled to execute in detail any activity 
in order to comprehend it; he would either have to be- 
come a sort of human kaleidoscope, or else he would not 
respond at all to most of the copies in his environment. 
This difficulty has been overcome by a kind of short 
circuiting of the reaction complex, whereby the sense 
element comes to reinstate the back stroke without the 
motor processes which originated it. If you will trace the 
natural history of any of the child's imitations, you will see 
the motor elements of famihar ones constantly subsiding, 
and the motor processes of new imitations taking their 
places. The central elements of the imitations that have 
been mastered remain in a generalized form and this is all 
that is needed for adjustment. So the individual grows on, 
until in maturity, if he has had broad experience, he bears 
in his organism the distinguishing elements of numberless 
imitations, the motor phases of which have seemingly 
wholly disappeared. These essential elements enable 



34 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

him, however, to interpret the world of action about him, 
and this is apparently one thing which imitation is designed 
to accompHsh. 
Motor ac- The point I am urging is that significant motor activity 

tivity in the 

traditional is required for effective learning. But the furnishings of 
many of our schoolrooms indicate that pupils are expected 
to devote themselves entirely to the memorizing of words. ^ 
It is not regarded by some as necessary that the learner 
should Hve over in a concrete, dynamic way the experi- 
ences of those who developed the words as symbols of 
their experiences. Mere word learning was so prominent 
in the days of Rousseau and Locke that their educational 
writings were devoted mainly to awakening the people to 
the need of reform in this respect. "In any study," says 
Rousseau, "words that represent things are nothing 
without the ideas of the things they represent. We, 
however, hmit children to these signs, without ever being 
able to make them understand the things represented. 
We think we are teaching the child the description of the 
earth, when he is merely learning maps. We teach him 
the names of cities, countries, rivers; he has no idea that 
they exist anywhere but on the map we use in pointing 
them out to him." Locke expresses his views to the same 
efifect, and goes even further; and it might be truthful 

^ See Rice, " The Public School System of the United States," for 
many illustrations of mere verbal teaching in the schools in different 
cities in our country. The whole book may be read, but see especially 
PP- 34-37. 42, and 55. 



DYNAMIC EDUCATION 35 

to say that every great educational writer for the past two 
centuries at least has endeavored to show up the short- 
comings of verbal teaching/ 

^ Illustrations of the results of verbalism may be found in abundance 
by any one who will visit a school where the memorizing of words is the 
chief occupation. In one school a class was recently heard reading "The 
Old Oaken Bucket." They rattled off glibly the words : — 
"How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood 
When fond recollection presents them to view; 
The orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled wildwood. 

And every loved spot which my infancy knew; 
The wide-spreading pond, and the mill that stood by it; 

The bridge and the rock where the cataract fell; 
The cot of my father, the dairy house nigh it, 

And e'en the rude bucket which hung in the well ! 
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, 

The moss-covered bucket which hung in the well." 

When they had finished, the teacher was asked if they appreciated 
the poem, and she appeared surprised at the question. " Didn't you hear 
them read it ? Didn't they pronounce the words correctly ? " she 
queried. To test their understanding they were asked to go to the board 
and illustrate the poem. One child drew a large circle and put in it 
four loops, and filled in the rest of the space with dots, when she appeared 
perfectly satisfied with her illustration. Asked to interpret it she pointed 
to the first loop and said, " e'en the rude bucket which hung in the well." 
Pointing to the second loop, "the old oaken bucket which hung in the 
well"; the third, "the moss-covered bucket which hung in the well." 
When asked what the dots meant, she said, " Oh, those are the loved 
spots which my infancy knew." Much of the teaching of the " tools" 
when divorced from real, vital knowledge of men and things is of no 
more value than " The Old Oaken Bucket" was to this class. 

A few years ago Caroline Le Row examined a number of children who 
had been taught in this manner, and she obtained some results that are 
suggestive. Here are some specimens of the wisdom gained from the 



36 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

Reform has But there are signs of better times ahead. The kinder- 

begun in the .... 

kindergarten, garten among US IS providmg, to some extent at least, 

opportunities for dynamic education. In the leading 
kindergartens to-day the pupil devotes much of his time 
to constructive activities that are carefully planned to 
meet his special needs. Again, he reproduces in his- plays 
in the circle the simpler occupations of the people with 
w^hom he comes in contact in his daily life. The true 
kindergarten is a place of action^ of doing, of testing, of 
experimenting,^ of practicing in play the serious enter- 
teaching of ciphering; and similar results were obtained in other sub- 
jects : — 

"Subtraction is the minuend and the subtracted end. 

"When there are two equal numbers it is called multiplication. 

"A quotient is a prime factor and is always a number, or some part 
of a number. 

" A composite number is just the same as a prime factor. 

"Brokerage is the allowance for the breakerage and leakerage of 
bottles. 

" Insurance is when you die, or burn your money, and the insurance 
office pays you for it. 

" Exchange in Europe is when you go through London, Paris, and 
places. 

" When you exchange money all you have to do is to get the right 
change. 

" If there are no units in a number, you have to fill it all up with zeros. 

" Units of any order are expressed by writing in the place of the order. 

"If fractions have a common denominator, find the difference in the 
denominator. 

"Interest on interest is confound interest. 

"The rule for proportion is to multiply it by all the terms." 

^ " In the kindergarten, knowledge is made clear by the self-activity 
of the child. All growth of human power is based on the self-activity of 



DYNAMIC EDUCATION 37 

prises of later life. The pupil does not spend his time 
memorizing the word for knife, to illustrate, but he works 
with it, and so really learns it because he discovers what 
he can do with it, which involves knowledge of its mechan- 
ical properties, how it must be handled, and so on. He 
does not view from afar off, as the pupil in the elementary 
school sometimes does, the sphere and cube and cylinder 
and recite about their "properties," ^ but he uses them in 
his games, and in constructing houses and other objects 
in which he is interested. 

I do not mean to say that there is no formalism left in The kinder- 
garten is not 
the kindergarten; that the static regimen has been aban- yet wholly 

^ ' o ^ free, though. 

doned altogether. Unhappily there is still some parrotlike 
reciting of phrases concerning divine love, patriotism, 
duty, and the like that have no influence upon the conduct 
of the pupils, for they cannot comprehend them because 
they are not yet making adjustments where these things 
are involved. The kindergarten offends seriously against 
the nature of the child in enforcing verbal patriotism and 
piety and love upon him. Patriotism and similar virtues 
must be left until the pupil begins to play his part in shap- 

the individual to be developed. No thought is ever definite until it has 
been consciously lived out or wrought out. The kindergarten makes 
use of self-expression in the child to define the thought already in its 
mind, and to reveal new thought. There is no other way by which 
thought can be clearly revealed and defined." — Hughes, Po^. 5«. ilfo., 

Vol. 45, pp. 2IO-2II. 

^ See Rice, op. cit., pp. 35-36, for examples of the static method. 



38 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

ing the destinies of his country. When he comes to assume 
the duties of a citizen in some simple activities at least, 
then is the psychological moment to talk to him about 
patriotism. Then teaching will not be mere idle singing, 
for what is taught can be reaUzed in action. 
The teaching This wiU be the best place, perhaps, to say a word 

of verbal , . . . . . , 

patriotism rcgardmg the teachmg of patriotism, as a typical matter 

as a typical • 1 1 • 1 

abstract con- of school concern, elsewhere than m the kindergarten. 

ception. 

One will not be accused of dogmatism when he says that 
respect and love for our country, and devotion to its laws 
and institutions, can never be developed in the young in 
an effective way by a mere formal study of the machinery 
of government. Mechanical conning of definitions in 
civics and political economy will never fill the hearts of 
youth with genuine enthusiasm for their native land. 
Some of us know how cold and indifferent our text-book 
study of civics in the elementary and secondary schools 
left us. Carlyle's apotheosis of Action, Work, seems 
especially appropriate in its bearing upon knowledge 
relating to the duties of free citizenship. "The knowledge 
that will hold good in working," he says,^ "cleave thou to 
that ; for Nature herself accredits that, says Yea to that. 
Properly thou hast no other knowledge but what thou hast 
got by working : the rest is all a hypothesis of knowledge ; 
a thing to be argued in schools, a thing floating in the 
clouds, in endless logic vortices, till we try and fix it." 

1 "Essay on Labor" (New York, 1867), p. 185. 



DYNAMIC EDUCATION 39 

Education for citizenship must at every point be dynamic. 
The child must at the appropriate time be made to par- 
ticipate in a concrete, vital manner in the functions of 
government in the circumstances of his daily Hfe. In 
this way he should be led to appreciate the reasons why 
he must do the things which the regulations of his com- 
munity constantly enforce upon him and his fellows. He 
must be made to realize, not in definitions and verbalisms, 
but in persons and actions, the source of authority for these 
regulations, and by what right certain individuals are 
clothed with power to compel their observance. This 
direct face-to-face and hand-to-hand contact with law, 
both in its operation and in its making, will alone win 
from our youth respect for and confidence in our insti- 
tutions,^ and develop in them patriotic and law-abiding 
conduct. 

TOPICS FOR INVESTIGATION AND DISCUSSION 

I. What changes in teaching have taken place within your 
own memory ? If possible observe the work to-day in the school 
which you attended in childhood. Write out as fully as pos- 
sible the changes you can detect: (a) in the teaching of the 

^ Emperor William is putting the principle into operation, although 
in an imperfect way, perhaps, when he arranges for the schoolboys of 
Germany to spend a few days on his warship and see and hear and feel 
what is there presented, instead of simply learning words about it all 
in some class room, practically as remote as the ends of the earth from 
the real heart and life of things. 



40 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

various studies, — arithmetic, geography, etc. ; and (b) note 
whether discipUne is more or less rigid than it was formerly. 

2. Do you thoroughly comprehend any object which you 
have never handled, or experimented with in any way? If 
so, show how you acquired your understanding. Do you think 
you really understand any game or art which you have never 
tried? Give psychological reasons for your answer. 

3. It is said that men reared in the country suffer less from 
nervous overstrain in modern city life than men reared in the 
city. What observations have you made in respect of this 
matter? Would you expect the statement to be true? Why? 

4. Could you learn to understand a foreign language when 
spoken if you never spoke it yourself? Have you known 
people who could read " silently " after they had lost speech? 

5. Why does a child use his lips in reading? Would you 
prevent him from doing this in the beginning ? 

6. What do you consider to be the chief defect in the 
methods of the school in which you were trained ? 

7. Is there any injury hkely to result to a pupil who learns 
words without having any comprehension of what they denote ? 

8. In what respects is the kindergarten better suited than 
the ordinary primary school to the nature and needs of child- 
hood ? In what respects is the primary school superior to the 
kindergarten ? 

9. Study the schoolrooms in your vicinity; in what re- 
spects are they ill-adapted to the nature and needs of child- 
hood? Are the most serious defects in the primary grades 
or in the high school? 

10. What are the arguments for and against permitting 
children to communicate with one another during school 
sessions ? 



CHAPTER III 

THE DYNAMIC ASPECT OF SCHOOL STUDIES 

What has been said in the foregoing chapters respecting Arithmetic as 

an instance. 

the place of motor activities in mental development ap- 
plies in principle to the teaching of all studies. The pupil 
in .the elementary school can gain genuine mastery of 
number, for example, only by using it in a concrete man- 
ner, in the construction of his playhouses or other objects, 
in buying and selling, in weighing and measuring, and in 
all the v^^ays necessitated in the carrying forward of the 
enterprises of daily life. There is so much the child wants 
to do that to do well requires the ready and accurate use 
of arithmetic that we need experience no difficulty in pre- 
senting it to him in a dynamic manner. What the pupil 
is unable to use at any time cannot be taught him most 
economically and efficiently at that time. 

The Committee of Ten, among other committees as 
well as individuals,^ has recently protested wisely, I think, 
against much that is taught under the term " commercial 

^ See, for instance, Dewey, '* The Primary School Fetish," 
Forum, Vol. 25, pp. 285 £f. ; Bolton, " Facts and Fiction in Educational 
Values," School Review, February, 1904; McMurry, "What Omissions 
are Advisable," etc., Add. and Proc. N. E. A., 1904, pp. 194 ff. 

41 



42 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

arithmetic." In speaking of such subjects as banking, 
insurance, discount, partial payments, equation of pay- 
ments, and the hke, the Committee says that in the text- 
books we find the subjects in question prefaced by very 
excellent definitions. "The pupil who masters them will 
be able to state on examination that the market value of 
stock is what the stock brings per share when sold for cash ; 
that stock is at a discount when its market value is less 
than its par value ; that its par value is that named in the 
certificate ; that the payee of a bill of exchange is the person 
to whom the money is ordered to be paid ; in fine, to state 
in brief sentences the "first principles of commercial law. 
He may also, after much conjecturing, be able to solve 
many questions in banking, exchange, insurance, and cus- 
tom-house business. But until he is brought into actual 
contact with the business itself, he can form no clear 
conception of what it all means, or what are the uses or 
applications of the problems he is solving. On the other 
hand, when he is once brought face to face with business 
as an actuality ; when for the first time he becomes a depos- 
itor in a savings bank, or a purchaser of shares in a cor- 
poration, he will find all the arithmetic necessary for his 
purposes to be interest, discount, and percentage. The 
conceptions which he vainly endeavored to master by 
recitations from a text-book take their places in his mind 
with hardly the necessity of an effort on his part." 

It is encouraging to note the change which is taking 



THE DYNAMIC ASPECT OF SCHOOL STUDIES 43 

place in the text-books in arithmetic. Those now coming 
from the press are requiring the pupil to react upon his 
environment, employing number as an aid. The method 
of sitting still and memorizing definitions, or mechanically 
learning fundamental operations and applying them to 
the solutions of problems entirely remote from the pupil's 
daily life — this method is losing its hold, though it has 
not disappeared altogether by any means.^ 
The principle here in question is universal in its applica- The dynamic 

principle 

tion. The pupil will gain his reading and writing and applies to 

all studies. 

spelling most effectively by using them in a vital way. 
They must not be set apart from his active life, but must 
be made the means of his gaining useful knowledge and 
recording it, and communicating with his friends. I see 
children as early as the sixth year strive with all their 
might to write well when they wish to send a letter to some 
friend. Then they will give attention to chirography and 
spelling. I see them digging out words, and seeking 
help from every source, when they wish to get at the 
story in some interesting book. University students 
must be driven to study German or French when they 
have, so far as they can see, no use for the language ; but 
when a professor needs it to carry on his researches, or 
his studies in foreign countries, then observe how vigor- 
ously he attacks it, and what progress he makes. 

Some of the reading books coming from the press are 

^ See Rice, op. cit., p. 42. 



44 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

Reading in reflecting the new ideal. What a contrast between the 

an older day. 

first book with which many children among us begin 
their reading, and the old New England Primer ! In our 
times the child may make his own lessons, telUng of the 
things that are of interest to him ; or he may get them in 
the form of stories that he loves dearly. And the aim 
is to make everything real and vital and attractive by 
illustrations that represent famihar situations in the 
pupil's active hfe. But note the contents of the first 
reading book of our forefathers, pubHshed in 1777, and 
see how remote they are from the real interests of the young : 
"The child's morning and evening prayer; the alphabet, 
vowels; consonants, capitals, small letters, syllabarium, 
consisting of ab, eb, ib, etc., and lists of words for spelhng 
arranged according to the number of syllables, beginning 
with monosyllables, and ending with abomination, ex- 
hortation, etc. ; a lesson for children, including such un- 
adorned moral injunctions as : Pray to God, Tell no lies, 
Call no ill names. Mind your book, Be not a dunce, etc. ; 
a series of woodcuts associated with the letters of the 
alphabet in order, beginning with the tree of forbidden 
fruit, the serpent and our first parents, and all arranged 
in appropriate rhyme. Thus: — 

" ' In Adam's fall 
We sinned all.' " * 

^ Reeder, " The Historical Development of School Readers and 
Method in Teaching Reading," p. 15. 



THE DYNAMIC ASPECT OF SCHOOL STUDIES 45 

"The edition published in 1831 contains several poems, 
a moral catechism, including abstract treatises on humil- 
ity, mercy, anger, justice, gratitude, avarice, frugaUty, 
industry, etc.; precepts concerning social relations, in 
which the young man, young woman, husband, wife, 
parent, and child are all briefly instructed and admonished 
concerning their duties and responsibihties." * 

The principle under discussion appUes to the teaching 
of language and drawing and geography and science, as 
well as to arithmetic and reading and writing and spelling, 
and I need not delay longer in discussing its apphcation 
to these studies. A word should be added, however, 
respecting its bearing upon the work of the secondary 
school. Many well-informed teachers of our day maintain The high 

school as the 

that formaUsm has endured longer in the high school last in the 

procession. 

than anywhere else. Secondary teachers as a whole seem 
to have had a kind of morbid fear of studying the pro- 
fessional side of their work, although there are evidences 
of some improvement in this respect. And as soon as a 
teacher begins seriously to study the purposes and method 
of teaching he is hkely to lose faith in the virtues of a formal, 
static regime. The Committee of Ten has aroused the 
high school, in many places at least, to a sense of its great 
shortcomings in the matter of making its teaching real and 
dynamic. Heretofore the chief emphasis in the teaching 
of ancient language was put upon the memorizing of 

J Reader, op. cit., p. 32. 



46 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

rules and forms, and syntactical constructions. Syntax 
was made an end it itself, and not "an auxiliary to the 
penetration of the sense." But we are told by the Com- 
mittee of Ten,^ that "at the very outset the student 
should be made to understand that these things are not 
ends but tools, and that the end is to gain, through the 
reading of Latin, an insight into the thought and feehng 
of a people who have contributed very largely to make 
the life of the civilized world of to-day what it is. The 
'Commentaries of Caesar,' the 'Epics of Virgil,' and 
the ' Orations of Cicero ' — commonly spoken of as 
subjects required for admission to college — are in 
reahty masterpieces of literary style and historical docu- 
ments of first-rate importance. The teacher, from whose 
attitude of mind his pupils are hkely to take their own 
attitude, will do well not to allow the burden of daily work 
and yearly repetition to lead him to set up a mechanical 
conception of Latin as a field for intellectual gymnastics, 
in place of the true conception of a vital literature, capable 
of exerting a strong attraction upon the young student 
(for the most part possessed as yet of but a very slight 
vision of any world except that which is immediately 
about him), and of becoming a powerful influence for the 
training of his taste and the awakening of his intellectual 
ambitions." 
The pupil, that is to say, is to gain Latin or any other 

^ Op. ciL, p. 73. 



THE DYNAMIC ASPECT OF SCHOOL STUDIES 47 

language ^ by using it in the attainment of ends of value 
to him. What a different view this is from that taken by 
Mr. Stelling in the teaching of Latin to Tom Tulhver ! 
Tom had no idea what it was all about, and his tutor, can language 

be taught in 

having faith in the value of pure drudgery, was not moved a dynamic 

way ? 

to enhghten him on the subject, and as a consequence 
things went badly for both teacher and pupil. The 
static ideal has until quite recently held complete sway 
in the teaching of the mother tongue. The notion that 
facility and effectiveness in expression could be and ought 
to be acquired only when the pupil reached the point where 
these things would be of service to him in his real life — 
this notion is but just appearing among us; and the 
worship of formal grammar and rhetoric and philology 
begins to show signs of decHne. These are of value to 
the high school student only as they aid him directly in 
revealing himself effectively (which includes clearness, 
accuracy, grace, etc., in his expression) to his fellows. 
He should never be required to learn rules and forms as 
ends in themselves,^ or in the behef that at some distant 

^ Every teacher of foreign language should read Gouin's delightful 
and instructive essay, giving the results of his experience in learning the 
German language, — Part First of his " The Art of Teaching and Study- 
ing Languages " (London, 1902). 

2 What the Committee of Twelve of the Modern Language Associa- 
tion of America (Report of the United States Commissioner of Education, 
1897-1898, p. 1414) says regarding the value of grammar in the study of 
a foreign language applies with even greater force to the study of the 
mother tongue. " In the teaching of grammar," the Committee says, " the 



48 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

time he may chance to need them. He must get them 
when he needs them, neither before nor after. In this 
way they will be brought into his active hfe; they will 
become organized into power because they will help the 
individual to deal the more successfully with certain 
situations in which he is placed. Talking and writing and 
gesticulating ^ for mere drill contribute little if anything 

most important principle to be kept in view is that the grammar is there 
for the sake of the language, and not the language for the sake of the gram- 
mar. The recitation of paradigms, rules, and exceptions is always in 
danger of degenerating into a facile routine in which there is but little 
profit. The important thing is not that the learner should acquire fa- 
cility in telling off paradigms, quoting statements, and explaining prin- 
ciples according to the book, but that he should acquire facility in under- 
standing and using the language. The maxim should be, Little theory 
and much application. It is of small use to be able to state correctly 
the principle of adjective declension, so long as the pupil, in attempting 
to apply the principle in a simple case, is obliged to stop and think, to 
recall his grammar, and perhaps to guess after all. The right forms 
must be so bred in to the blood that they come naturally from tongue and 
pen." 

^ Formalism is still rampant in the teaching of elocution and oratory. 
Definitions and mechanical gesturing are supposed to develop capacity 
for ready and effective expression. Caroline Le Row gives some results 
of an examination in oratory that are diverting and perhaps suggestive. 
Here are a few illustrations : — 

Elocution is opening the mouth wide open. 

It is a very important thing to breathe. 

We should always breathe with the musels of the diagram, unless we 
have catarr or a cold in the head. 

Strong breathing prevents bilious deficiencies. 

Good breathing prevents contagious diseases from settling in the 
system. 



THE DYNAMIC ASPECT OF SCHOOL STUDIES 49 

to efficiency in expression. The Committee of Ten, speak- 
ing on this point, says it "doubts the wisdom of requiring 
for admission to college set essays — essays whose chief 
purpose is to test the pupil's ability to write English. It 
believes that there are serious theoretical and practical 
objections to estimating a student's power to write a lan- 
guage on the basis of a theme composed not for the sake 
of expounding something that he knows or thinks, but 
merely for the sake of showing his ability to write. '^ 

It is gratifying to see that the static method is beginning 
to lose caste among the best teachers of modern languages. 
The Committee of Twelve, as well as the Committee of 
Ten, has emphasized the need of making a foreign lan- 
guage significant to the pupil; of so handhng it that he 
will feel its usefulness in his daily life. It must not be 
regarded as a thing apart from his vital interests. Says 
the Committee of Twelve,^ "The study of French and 
German in the secondary schools is profitable in three 
ways: First, as an introduction to the life and literature 

Breathing is very good for reading for when you are reading you carnt 
breathe at all and so it is good to breathe a good deal before. 

Vowel sounds are made by keeping the mouth wide open and conso- 
nant sounds by keeping it shut. 

The asperate quality of voice is when you try to say something in a 
whisper. 

Force is more loudness sometimes than others. 

Emphasis is putting more distress on one word than another. 

Inflection is when the voice goes up and then down again it is a period. 

1 Op. cit., p. 1393. 



50 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

of France and Germany; secondly, as a preparation for 
intellectual pursuits that require the ability to read French 
and German for information; thirdly, as the foundation 
of an accompHshment that may become useful in business 
and travel." This has the right ring to it, for it makes 
language study minister to a need arising in the pupil's 
broadening life. If this conception be carried into effect, 
the pupil will in the mastery of French or German become 
possessed of a tool which he can use to very good advantage 
in the situations in which he is likely often to be placed in 
the world outside the schoolroom. 
The teaching What has been said of language applies equally well in 

of sciciicc 

in the high principle to all the studies of the secondary school. But 
a word on the teaching of science may be added before 
this subject is dismissed. Some of us can remember 
when physics, chemistry, botany, zoology, physiology, and 
astronomy were taught almost wholly from a text-book, 
and in the space of thirteen weeks each. A few years ago 
it was deemed a waste of energy for a pupil to spend 
time over a microscope or a piece of physical apparatus. 
Sometimes the instructor would illustrate an experiment, 
but usually he had neither the skill nor the equipment 
to perform experiments successfully. Rice ^ tells of ob- 
serving a class in physics in one of our great cities; and 
there being nothing but the text-book in evidence he asked 
the teacher if she allowed her pupils to experiment by 
themselves. 

^ Op. cit., p. 60. 



school. 



THE DYNAMIC ASPECT OF SCHOOL STUDIES 5 1 

"'Oh, we have no experiments,' she said. 'We learn 
our physics from books. The city supplies us with no 
apparatus. We are at hberty to experiment if we desire.' 
A friend of mine, a principal, informed me that she tried 
to make an experiment once, but it was a failure, and she 
vowed she would never dream of making another one. 

"In one class where they were having physiology, in 
answer to the question, What is the effect of alcohol on the 
system? I heard a ten-year-old cry at the top of his voice, 
and at the rate of a hundred miles an hour: 'It — dwarfs 
the — body — and — soul, — weakens — the — heart — 
and — enfeebles — the — memory.' 

'"And what are the effects of tobacco?' asked the 
teacher. 

"In answer to this, one boy called off, in rapid succes- 
sion, more diseases than are known to most physicians." * 

1 I cannot forbear giving a few more choice specimens from Caroline 
Le Row's collection. And first, physiology : — 

Physillogigy is to study about your bones stummick and vertebry. 

We have an upper and lower skin. The lower skin moves all the 
time and the upper skin moves when we do. 

The body is mostly composed of water and about one half is avaricious 
tissue. 

The chyle flows up the middle of the backbone and reaches the heart 
where it meets the oxygen and is purified. 

In the stomach starch is changes to cane-sugar and cane-sugar to 
sugar-cane. 
Here are some brilliancies in astronomy : — 

The weight of the earth is found by comparing a mass of known lead 
with that of a mass of unknown lead. 



52 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

The static method is as bare and ineffective in science 
as in any other study. The pupil's relations to the world 
described by the sciences are very concrete and dynamic, 
and the v^^ork of the schoolroom should perfect him in 
these relations. Happily reform is already setting in. The 
past five years have witnessed great changes for the better 
in science text-books, and many voices are now raised 
against confining the study of nature to the printed page, 
all agreeing that the pupil must go out into nature and 
there hold communion with her visible and invisible forms. 
He must learn what nature is by trying what he can do 
with it ; thus he measures it in terms of his own strength 
and skill, and discovers how it can be manipulated ; and it 
is this experience that yields vital knowledge, and that 
enlists genuine interest. 

TOPICS FOR INVESTIGATION AND DISCUSSION 

1. Show how mensuration in arithmetic may be taught in 
a dynamic way. Also the tables of money, weights, liquid and 
dry measure. 

2. How much of commercial arithmetic will the majority 
of pupils use in their daily lives? How much do you use in 

The size of the earth is found by finding the horizontal parallax of 
the sun. 

Abberation is if we saw a star and shot at it the shot would not pass 
through the center but through the side. 

Eclipses are caused whenever the obscuration of a body is passed by 
the shadow of some other body. 

The stars would cover up the whole heavens if they were all spread 
out so astronomers have concluded to arrange them in constellations. 



THE DYNAMIC ASPECT OF SCHOOL STUDIES 53 

your own life? Can you teach commercial arithmetic to 
children in the elementary schools so that they will use it as 
they acquire it ? Or if taught must it be acquired by definition 
and by solving book problems ? 

3. Comment on the value of arithmetic to a pupil who has 
never had opportunity to employ it in practical situations — 
whose experience with it has never extended beyond the text- 
book. 

4. Point out the diflference in methods in teaching writing 
in a dynamic and in a static way. 

5. Show how you would teach reading dynamically to 
pupils in the third grade, say. Have you observed that reading 
is ordinarily taught in this manner? 

6. Indicate how you would teach the mother tongue dy- 
namically. Can grammar be so taught ? Show how. 

7. How may German, as a typical foreign language, be 
taught dynamically? Compare two pupils who have been 
taught German for the same length of time, one in a static, 
verbal way, the other in a dynamic way. How will they differ 
in their mastery of the language ? 

8. What is the static, verbal method as applied to music? 
to drawing? Outline a dynamic method for presenting these 
studies. 

9. Show how the dynamic method may be applied in the 
teaching of (a) history, (6) hterature, (c) physics. 

10. Compare the high schools and the elementary schools 
in your locality. Which, so far as you can observe, are the more 
vital and dynamic in their teaching? What are the evidences 
upon which your opinion is based ? 



CHAPTER IV 

MANUAL ACTIVITIES IN EDUCATION 

Some current Ix has been the aim thus far to show that the school 

views of man- i. • 

uai activities should teach the common studies m a dynamic way ; but 
we must turn now to a group of subjects — domestic 
science, wood and iron working, mechanical drawing, 
etc. — that are generally thought to require muscular 
activity principally in their prosecution. These studies 
have gained admission to the curriculum mainly because 
some people have felt that the young need muscular 
activity and training, and the school ought to provide for 
it. The ordinary studies offer no opportunity for it ; they 
discipUne the memory in the main. So there must be 
work with tools, — hammering and sawing and cooking 
and sewing. It has been appreciated by a few, of course, 
that manual activities do more for the individual than sim- 
ply exercise his muscles; they make perception keener, 
and thinking more accurate.^ They exert a beneficial 

^ See the following important articles treating of the theory of manual 
activities and their employment in education: Shaw, "The Employ- 
ment of the Motor Activities in Teaching," Pop. Sci. Mo., Vol. 50, pp. 
56-67; Patrick, "Should Children under Ten Years Learn to Read 
and Write," Pop. Sci. Mo., Vol. 54, pp. 382-392 ; Dewey, "The Primary 
School Fetish," Forum, Vol. 25, pp. 315 et seq. 

54 



MANUAL ACTIVITIES IN EDUCATION 55 

influence upon one's character, too, since they develop a 
comprehension of and respect for law. A pupil, so the 
argument runs, who day after day sees that in the material 
world failure to hew to the hne results disastrously will 
come gradually to reaUze the necessity of hewing to the 
moral hne in all his conduct. Further, these manual 
activities are adapted to awaken and develop aesthetic 
appreciation, since the making of beautiful forms is the 
essential requisite for aesthetic perception. 

The originators of manual training as it is understood 
among us ^ apparently saw that the practical value, in the 
material sense, of joining, turning, basket making, and the 
like was of minor importance when compared with the 
intellectual, aesthetic, and moral values. And most 
present-day students of the matter seem to have reached 
this general conclusion. Adler ^ has pointed out that 
the occupation of the workshop and the atelier contributes 
to give the pupil the power of judging impersonally, which 
is essential for the right estimate of moral situations. 
The effort to give definite, mathematical, and aesthetic 
form to formless material, requiring continuous attention 
and toil, develops the habit of looking at things from the 
standpoint of their intrinsic rather than their superficial 
quahties; and the experience thus gained with material 

^ Cygneus, in Finland, 1858, and Delia Vos, St. Petersburg, 1868. 

^ Quoted by Woodward, "The Rise and Progress of Manual Train- 
ing," Report of the Commissioner of Education, 1893-1894, Vol. i, 
p. 889. See also Abel, "An Experiment in Education." 



56 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

things insensibly affects all one's relationships. "A 
delicate sensibiHty to true and harmonious relations will 
be engendered, and the impressions thus obtained can 
later on be raised into convictions by direct moral instruc- 
tion. The pupil, when of sufficient age, can be taught 
that in the world of thought and feeUng, too, truth and 
harmony of relation are to be the sole ends to be sought. 
He can be exhorted to undergo similar toil, to be prepared 
for similar failures and disappointments, in order to 
realize at last something of the same inward perfection 
which is to be his only and all-sufficient reward. Thus 
while he is shaping the typical objects which the in- 
structor proposes to him as a task, while he pores silently, 
persistently, and lovingly over these objects, reaching 
success by dint of gradual approximation, he is at the same 
time shaping his own character, and a tendency of mind 
is created from which will eventually result the loftiest and 
purest morality."^ 
The real value The defendants of manual training generally maintain, 
tiYities. as Professor James does,^ that its value Ues primarily in 
the benefit which an individual derives from dealing in 
an exact way with material objects. In this manner he 
gains a sense of the reahty of things, and of the necessity 

^ I attempt in the following chapter to point out some limitations to 
the value of manual training. The claims of Mr. Adler and others may, 
from one standpoint, be regarded as excessive. 

2 Atlantic Monthly, March, 1899. See also his "Talks to Teachers," 
etc., Chaps. V-VII. 



MANUAL ACTIVITIES IN EDUCATION 57 

of coordinating his actions in conformity with the nature 
of these things. In this work right and wrong are readily 
detected, and the reward for right action and punishment 
for wrong action is direct and positive. There is no escape. 
In the more complex affairs of Ufe, however, right and 
wrong are not so readily discerned, and the outcome in 
any case is not so apparent; and the pupil can best be 
got ready to discern these subtler relations by giving him 
much experience in observing them in the more simple 
situations. 

The prevailing view to-day may best be presented in 
the words of Professor James. "The most colossal im- 
provement which recent years have seen in secondary 
education," he says, "hes in the introduction of the man- 
ual training schools; not because they will give us a 
people more handy and practical for domestic life and 
better skilled in trades, but because they will give us citi- 
zens with an entirely different intellectual fiber. Labora- 
tory work and shop work engender a habit of observation, 
a knowledge of the difference between accuracy and 
vagueness, and an insight into nature's complexity and 
into the inadequacy of all abstract verbal accounts of 
real phenomena which, once wrought into the mind, 
remain there as hfelong possessions. They confer pre- 
cision; because if you are doing a thing, you must do it 
definitely right or definitely wrong. They give honesty; 
for when you express yourself by making things, and not 



58 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

by using words, it becomes impossible to dissimulate your 
vagueness or ignorance by ambiguity. They beget a 
habit of self-reliance; they keep the interest and atten- 
tion always cheerfully engaged, and reduce the teacher's 
discipHnary functions to a minimum. " ^ 

^ Compare this statement of Professor James with those made by 
some of the " leading educators " when manual training was getting itself 
born in this country. President Gray said in the School Journal, June 
23, 1888: "The apotheosis is complete. But one thing further is to be 
said, and that is potentially said, in the statement given above, viz.: 
Morse or Fulton is a grander figure in the progress of man than is Plato 
or Jesus Christ. The latter made neither steamboats nor telegraphs. 
He wrought in the world of thought, as did Plato, but the man who 
invents a sewing machine is greater than both. For shame, intelligent, 
Christian, American teachers ! " 

Dr. E. E. White, in discussing manual training at the meeting of the 
N. E. A. in Saratoga, 1888, maintained that " this doctrine saps the very 
foundation of the public-school system, puts a magazine under it, and 
then lays a train out to fire it. The educator who does that cannot blame 
the outsider if he fires that train, and the public-school system, in some of 
its important departments, is blown up before his eyes. He need not be 
startled at such a result, for he put the magazine under it." 

Superintendent Marble, on the same occasion, presented somewhat 
similar views. " The schools we are to conduct," he reasoned, " are to 
train boys and girls in those directions that are common to everybody, 
and one of the things that the boys and girls ought to learn in those schools 
is how to get information from books. There is no information stored 
up in the plow, hoe handle, steam engine ; but there is information stored 
up in books. If a boy is prepared to get information from books, he can 
make indefinite progress. If you take out of his hand the books and 
put in there the handsaw and the hammer, and ask the teacher — who 
is most likely a young girl — to teach them, when she does not know any- 
thing about them, the whole matter will simply become ' a bore ' to all 
parties concerned. The saw is brought into the recitation room, and the 



MANUAL ACTIVITIES IN EDUCATION $g 

In the earliest years the pupil's chief interest is in con- The cmm's 

first absorb- 

structive activity. If he be given freedom to do as he ing interest, 
chooses, and suitable equipment, by far the larger part 
of his time will be spent in construction, in imitation of the 
activities going on about him. If he has blocks he will be 
building ; if paper and scissors he will be cutting ; if sand 
he will be modeling ; if tools he will be framing a box or 
a house or what not ; all, of course, in a crude, imperfect 
way. These activities, as Professor Dewey says,^ "evoke 
and direct what is most fundamental and vital in the child, 
that in which he is the heir of all the ages, and through 
which he recapitulates the progress of the race. It was 
certainly a gain for educational theory and practice when 

teacher says. ' Now, saw.' It is a thing that does not belong to the 
school at all. It belongs outside, and ought to be attended to outside." 

Now contrast with these views the opinions of a present-day experi- 
mental psychologist. " Manual training develops the intellectual side 
of the mind as nothing else can. By book work or by study a boy never 
learns to think or understand, or even remember, as well as he might; 
it is only when he gets involved in sports and games like baseball and 
canoeing, or in machinery like lathes and buzz saws, or in laboratory 
complications like chemical analyses and measurements of electricity, 
that he ever learns to think fully as a man. . . . Honesty is directly 
developed by all exercises in precise measurement in a regular gradation 
from the blacksmith's forge upward through the carpenter's bench, the 
machinist's lathe, the chemist's balance, and the physicist's electrical 
scale. Careful courage is directly developed by the grasp on a sharp 
instrument, or by facing a rapidly whirling lathe. Sociability and 
solidarity are developed by the games of the kindergarten and by the 
making of pieces of machinery in common." — Scripture, Manual 
Training Magazine, Vol. I, No. i, p. 24. 

^ In the Manual Training Magazine, July, 1901, p. 197. 



6o THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

appeal to personal and immediate sense perception dis- 
placed reliance upon symbols and abstract ideas. But, 
after all, to have sensations, to receive impressions through 
sight or hearing, is not the ultimate thing. To do, to per- 
form, to execute, to make, to control and direct activity — 
it is for the sake of such things that perceptions and im- 
pressions exist. Indeed, to see and to hear is more than 
to have impressions ; to see and to hear is to do, to do in 
cooperation with head, arm, hand, and leg." 
Manual activ- Viewed from the psychological standpoint, manual 

iti6S viewed 

from psycho- activities yield elementary ideas which are essential to the 
neurological development of any degree of complexity of mental 

standpoints. 

processes. On the neurological side, according to modern 
theory, manual training is of immense value in the de- 
velopment of the motor regions of the cerebral cortex.* 
BalHet ^ has pointed out that manual training, requiring 
the coordination of eye and hand at the same time, knits 
together the cerebral areas concerned, and this results in a 
general betterment of the organization of the brain. Per- 
fect sanity and mental health appear to require the estab- 
lishment of associations between sensory and motor areas 
of the cortex, and manual training is best fitted to attain 
this end. Thought and deed must be intimately related 
to each other if life is to be properly balanced and con- 

^ See, for instance, Donaldson, " Growth of the Brain," Chap. XVIII. 

^ See his address delivered before the Massachusetts Teachers' Asso- 
ciation at Worcester, Massachusetts, Nov. 30, 1895, ^^'^ published by 
the Association, Maiden, 1896. 



MANUAL ACTIVITIES IN EDUCATION 6 1 

trolled — if there is to be firmness and poise of character. 
But, continues Balliet, "much of our present school work 
divorces knowing from doing, and often exaggerates the 
relative value of the former as compared with that of the 
latter. Examinations test knowing more than doing, and 
even university degrees are conferred on the basis of at- 
tainment in knowing rather than attainment in doing. 
This may be to a large extent unavoidable, but it is never- 
theless unfortunate. The legitimate end of knowing is 
doing." 

It is exceedingly suggestive that defective and delinquent suggestions 

gained from 

children are helped most by manual training. Seguin,^ the training 

^ ° ° of defective 

as I have intimated above, has shown that in the training of a^d deiin- 

quent chil- 

idiots one must begin with the hand. The dull mind is ^"'i- 
awakened through the necessity of accompKshing some 
task involved in motor adjustment. Experiments in the 
treatment of young criminals in the Elmira reformatory 
reveal the beneficent influence of work with tools. Many 
instances like the following ^ are on record : — 

"This is the story of Conscript No. 6924, who was assigned 
to manual training in March, 1897. This pupil came to the 
school from the third grade, or incorrigibles, having been sent 
there as a result of continued depravity. In the July follow- 
ing his admittance he lost ten marks as a result of continual 

^ See his "Idiocy and its Treatment by the Physiological Method," 
Wood and Co., New York, 1866. 

2 See the Elmira Reformatory Year Book for 1897, pp. 57-121; also 
Scripture, op. cii., pp. 20, 22. 



62 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

talking, laughing, and slovenliness, and for these offences he 
was reduced to the second grade, July 21, 1895. 

"In August he lost ten marks, and was in seclusion three 
days. In September he lost eleven marks for malingering, 
carelessness, and talking. He was sent to seclusion again, 
this time for two days. In October he lost five marks for 
malingering and talking. In November he lost four marks, 
talking and laughing. In December he lost two marks for 
denial of legitimate report and for untidiness. 

"In January, 1896, he lost eleven marks for conspiracy, 
etc. ; in February he lost five marks for talking and slovenli- 
ness ; in March he lost ten marks for talking and slovenliness. 
On April 2 he was sent to the third grade for treatment as an 
incorrigible, and remained there until June 25, when he was 
given a chance to mend his ways, and temporarily assigned as 
a laborer in the improvement squad to work on buildings then 
in course of construction. In August he lost one mark for 
wasting food. In September made a good record. In Octo- 
ber he lost three marks, November ten marks, and in Decem- 
ber he lost one mark, with the result of the modified treatment 
being withdrawn. 

"In January, 1897, he was in the third grade (incorrigible). 
On March 6 he was assigned to manual training. Group II 
(Self-control Defectives), with subjects as follows: athletics 
and calesthenics, mechanical drawing, molding, sloyd, chip- 
ping, and filing ; each subject one and one half hours per day, 
five days per week. 

"Here begins a phenomenal change. The first month of 
his assignment he made a perfect record, and was restored to 
the second grade. From this time on there was a sustained 
effort to improve. The influence of intelligent, systematic, 



MANUAL ACTIVITIES IN EDUCATION 63 

and entertaining employment, based upon principles funda- 
mentally correct, began to show fruit, and he grew up rapidly 
into personal respect, moral elevation, and responsibility. 
This pupil, for the entire time of his manual training assign- 
ment, four months and one day, did not lose a mark; also 
during this time his reports were only one second class report, 
two third class reports, and one labor report, or a total value 
of only eighty cents in four months and a day. This, in con- 
trast to his earlier records of ten and eleven lost marks almost 
monthly, is remarkable. He was restored to lower first grade 
July I, 1897, having earned promotion. He was graduated 
October 4, 1897, and retained in capacity of instructor in 
sloyd classes, and is doing well at this writing." 

TOPICS FOR INVESTIGATION AND DISCUSSION 

1. Did you have any manual training in your own educa- 
tion ? If so, what did you gain from it ? If not, did you have 
opportunity for manual activities outside of school? 

2. Do the children you see about you to-day have oppor- 
tunity for as wide range of manual activities as you enjoyed 
yourself ? 

3. Observe the children in your locality, and make a note 
of the occupations they are habitually engaged in that employ 
the hand. 

4. Compare the city child with the country child in respect 
of their opportunities for manual activities. 

5. Is there greater need for manual training in the schools 
of to-day than in the schools of fifty years ago ? Why ? 

6. Ask the people around you what in their opinion should 
be accomplished in manual activities in the school. Do you 
agree? Give all the arguments in the premises. 



64 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

7. Have you known children who were stupid in arith- 
metic and grammar but who were bright and efficient in all 
work requiring the use of the hands ? Be specific in describing 
these children. 

8. Will manual training in the schools take time from more 
useful studies? Argue the case. 

9. If you can do so, compare pupils who have manual 
training with those who do not, and note whether the former 
are deficient in the common branches. Are the latter deficient 
in anything? 

10. If you have opportunity, compare schools in which all 
pupils have manual training with schools in which there is 
none of this work, and note whether pupils seem happier and 
better controlled in the one place than in the other. Is disci- 
pline a more difficult problem in the one school than in the 
other ? If you cannot make an actual test of the matter, what 
would you expect to find? Why? 



CHAPTER V 

MANUAL ACTIVITIES IN EDUCATION {Continued) 

While granting the potential value of manual train- Manual train- 
ing must fol- 
ing, it should at the same time be recognized that, in low the lead 

° of the child s 

order to accomplish its purpose, it must follow the lead interests, 
of the child's interests, and must concern itself with deeds, 
not with abstractions or definitions. One may see work 
in this subject which is confined wholly to the theory of 
tools and constructions, and the making of merely formal 
objects. But this sort of work is Uttle more real and 
dynamic than is geographical or Unguistic theory and 
formulae. The elaboration of a science of manual train- 
ing is very apt to beget some such formalism in teaching 
as characterized instruction in arithmetic or grammar in 
an earUer day, wherein the beginning was made with 
definitions and logically elementary principles that were 
on the whole meaningless and uninteresting to the pupil.^ 
To repeat a point made above, the motor interests and 
inchnations of the young lie in the direction of repro- 
ducing by the use of suitable materials the activities which 

^ Since the above was written I have read an article by Hall, in the 
Manual Training Magazine^ July> 1902, which emphasizes the point I 
have tried to make. I commend it to the reader. 
F 65 



66 



THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 



The logical 
vs. the psy- 
chological 
order. 



are occurring in their environments. The child is ever 
seeking to adapt himself to his surroundings through imi- 
tation, and he strives then to copy the work of the car- 
penter and the blacksmith and the farmer, and others 
with whom he comes in contact. He has here valuable 
motifs given him by his imitative tendencies, to be realized 
through motor activities; and manual training ought to 
start at this point. It ought not to begin with logical 
abstractions which have not become meaningful to the 
pupil because of his experience and his native interests. 
It ought not to start with the theory of the use of tools; 
but theory, here as elsewhere, should be gained largely 
through actual experience. I cannot see that the theory 
relating to the manipulation of a saw, for example, can 
be apprehended any better when taken by itself apart 
than the theory of arithmetic without weighing and 
measuring and buying and selling, or the theory of lan- 
guage without speaking and writing correctly and 
effectively. 

The manual training people, some of them, have fallen 
into a very common educational error. They have de- 
veloped their subject quite apart from the real Hfe of the 
child. They have begun with the logically simple and 
proceeded to the logically complex, regardless of the 
interests of the pupil at different stages in his evolution. 
One must learn elementary facts before he can appreciate 
compUcated objects, say the specialists, as well in manual 



MANUAL ACTIVITIES IN EDUCATION 67 

training as in other studies. A child cannot use tools 
in making a box until he has had a great deal of instruc- 
tion in the use of saw and hammer and plane; until he 
has learned how to make working drawings, and, in 
short, has mastered all the simple processes involved in 
the construction of any complex thing. So it is a long 
time, according to this regime, before the child really 
makes an article in which he is genuinely interested 
because it ministers to some need in his daily hfe. The 
specialists in music formerly proceeded in the same way 
in teaching their subject. The pupil was kept, and in some 
places is still kept, for that matter, for a long period on 
technique before he was permitted, or at least encouraged, 
to express himself through musical sounds. So the 
drawing and writing teachers insisted upon years of drill 
on formal elements before the arts they taught could be 
employed by the learner in any interesting or helpful 
way. 

But we are growing away from this practice to-day, in 
respect of some of the studies at any rate, for, as I have 
indicated elsewhere, we are appreciating that technique 
can be best acquired in connection with a mastery of the 
content which is to be expressed by means of it ; and ele- 
mentary formal factors may usually best be ignored as 
distinct elements, requiring separate treatment. They 
must all be fused together into a unity, by employing 
them as a whole in doing something requiring their use 



The individ- 
ual must fol- 
low the racial 
course. 



68 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION * 

in this way. Kirkpatrick presents the view of modern 
psychology when he says ^ that, "In the history of the 
race . . . men have learned to do things, then reflected 
upon how they do them, analyzed to discover elements, 
then determined the general laws according to which the 
actions may be successfully performed, and this order of 
procedure is the natural one to the child. . . . This is 
true, not simply because of the general tendency of the 
mind to develop in this order, but because the past ex- 
perience of the race has developed a very definite system 
of relations between various stimuli and various simple 
movements, and has probably developed less definitely 
various combinations of simple movements and a ten- 
dency to other combinations in the attainment of ends 
frequently striven for by the race. The teaching of a 
movement by having each of its elements learned, and then 
having these elements combined and used, is not only a 
reversal of the natural order in attaining an end and a 
misdirection of attention, but is an undoing of what has 
been partially done by the experience of our ancestors, 
instead of completing the process." 

We do not solve all our problems, of course, when we de- 
cide that the child must acquire his arts and his knowledge 
in the general manner in which these were elaborated by 
the race before him, the method which Spencer ^ empha- 

^ See his "Education," Chap. II. 
2 Psych. Rev.f Vol. VI, p. 281. 



MANUAL ACTIVITIES IN EDUCATION 69 

sizes SO strongly. Just how has the race acquired its arts? 
What is the racial order of development ? these questions 
are in dispute, as to the details at any rate ; but the large 
facts appear to be fairly well estabhshed. Professor 
Dewey ^ has given us a regimen which he thinks is faith- 
ful, ahke to the racial order of industrial development and 
to the interests and capacities of the child.^ The theory 
is that the child in his individual development recapitu- 
lates in his interests the industrial history of the race. 
At a certain period in his development, then, he will be 
interested in the typical activities of agriculture, for in- 
stance, and his manual work should be adapted to realize 
this interest. He should be given an opportunity to re- 
produce the characteristic work of the farm, starting with 
the most primitive modes of tilling the soil, harvesting 
the crops, and the Hke. In separating the wheat kernel 
from the stalk, for example, the flail was used before the 
threshing machine, and so the pupil must begin by making 
a flail. Then there will be dressing of dolls in clothing 
appropriate to farm life. Modes of transportation will be 
worked out ; and implements to carry on the work of the 
farm must be made, — wagons, measures of various sorts, 
sacks, and barrels. The preparation of grains for food 
requires the child to work out methods of milhng and 

^ See his "General Principles of Work," Elementary School Record, 
No. 13. 

^ The plan is worked out in detail in Miss Dopp's "Industries in 
Elementary Education." 



70 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

sieving. In like manner he must construct devices for 
the making of butter and cheese, the working up of wool 
into clothing, and so on. In the course of eight to twelve 
years, following this plan, he will have repeated the main 
forms of the activities of the race in its conquest of 
nature. Manual training at any point in his progress 
will be merely a means to an end, and that the reahza- 
tion of the constructive passion of the child, which en- 
ables him to grow into an appreciation of what the race 
has accomplished, and prepares him to make advances 
thereupon. The sequence in manual training, according 
to this scheme, is determined by the constructive inter- 
ests of the pupil, which in turn depend upon his interests 
in the various activities presented in his environment, 
and not by the logic of the subject, when the two 
sequences do not correspond, as they certainly do not in 
the beginning. 

The pupil must, of course, begin with relatively simple 
ftom thl^s"™- activities. He must have tools that do not require difficult 
compieiln coordinations in their management, and he should not 
"fe"?^^^*^*^^' be asked to make complex and elaborate articles. If he 
follows the phylogenetic order in the tools he uses and the 
objects he makes, he will be progressing constantly from 
things simple to things more complex. Thus when he is 
passing through the hunting period, so called, he will 
make the implements which have been successively em- 
ployed in this activity, beginning with the club, say, and 



What does it 



MANUAL ACTIVITIES IN EDUCATION 7 1 

passing on in order to the sling shot, the bow and arrow, 
and lastly firearms. 

As he progresses in his work the pupil will need to make 
use of more and more complex tools, and in this he will 
follow the racial course of development. Woodward * 
has shown that every tool has had a history; and like 
everything else it was relatively crude at the start and 
capable of being used only in coarse work. But in the 
process of development it becomes constantly more re- 
fined because it is being put to more dehcate and highly 
coordinated uses. The development of tools follows the 
development of mind; as mental processes become more 
complex man must constantly remodel his environments, 
working them over into more complex and elaborate 
organization. One cannot conceive of the mind develop- 
ing continually while the environments remain unchanged ; 
the internal and the external world must evolve together. 
Mind grows for the purpose of working up the objective 
world into more and more comphcated forms, so that it 
may sustain a more and more complex organism ; and this 
means that with mental development tools and manual 
processes must become ever more complicated. 

The manual training speciaHsts are likely to err in 
thinking that simplicity viewed in a pedagogical Hght 
means merely structural homogeneity. A sphere accord- 

1 Op. ciL, p. 88 1. 



72 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

ing to this view would be very simple compared with a 
chair or a house. But a perfect sphere, or the most 
(Esthetic sphere, is a very complex thing for a child. He 
cannot easily apprehend or construct the aesthetic char- 
acteristics of things, for these always demand relatively 
great coordination and attention to minute details. A 
child can work harder in making a sphere than in making 
a chair or even a house, if he gives his attention to the 
characteristics of use only in the latter. I have indicated 
elsewhere ^ that children at first pay little heed to the 
aesthetic aspects of the things they use or make; the 
service of objects in ministering to vital needs is mainly 
considered, and crudity will serve as well as refinement 
in attaining this end. The child makes his doll house 
and his furniture therefor with reference largely, and it 
may be wholly, to the way in which they are to be used, 
and he is not particularly concerned with the artistic 
appearance of his handiwork. 

H. at six years would frequently bring to me an arm- 
ful of furniture which she had made in her workshop, and 
every piece showed clearly enough that there was a good 
conception of the use to which it was to be put, but there 
was Httle if any account taken of the aesthetic character- 
istics. Rough, crude, ugly appearances, viewed from the 
adult's standpoint, suited H. very well. In the making 

^ See "Children's Expression through Drawing," Add. and Proc. 
N. E. A., 1897, pp. 1015-1023. 



MANUAL ACTIVITIES IN EDUCATION 73 

of a doll's sofa, for instance, which H. frequently did at 
this age, she would use a couple of pieces of rough boards 
for support, nail another on to these for a seat, put on a 
back, and the thing was complete. She would reveal 
hardly any desire that the various parts should harmonize 
with one another in any aesthetic way; use alone occu- 
pied her serious attention. And what was true of the sofa 
was true of all the articles she made at this time. How- 
ever, now in her ninth year she is paying considerable 
attention to appearances. Things are pretty or fine or 
ugly or horrible, and the Hke. Use is still, of course, an 
important attribute of the things she constructs, but these 
other qualities are being added, and this makes her prob- 
lem continually more difficult and more complex. Com- 
plexity is not so much a matter of objects as of the way 
in which they are regarded. We need have no fear, if the 
child be permitted to make the objects which are of pre- 
dominant interest to him at different periods, that he will 
be attempting too complex work; rather we are to avoid 
forcing upon him logically simple things, and endeavoring 
to have him reahze adult aesthetic conceptions in their 
execution. 
In our manual training, then, we must plan it so that the crude work 

first, aes- 

pupil will at the start do coarse, crude work that interests thetic work 

last. 

him, emphasizing the quahty of use. When he reaches 
the high school his work should be of a complex character, 
which should require much more elaborate and accurate 



74 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

coordination than the young child is capable of. Of 
course, if the pupil be permitted from first to last to pro- 
duce only crude articles, his progress will be impeded. 
A pupil who works in the same coarse way in the fifth 
grade that he did in the first is losing his chance of doing 
work of a higher quality. All his mental and motor 
processes will become arrested at this stage of develop- 
ment. A boy put to blacksmithing at twelve and kept 
at it may develop power in this special activity, but he 
will be found wanting if he be put to the test of performing 
finer coordinations in sewing or similar actions.^ 

This will be the best place to point out certain limita- 
tions to the serviceableness of manual training in educa- 
tion. It is to be feared that there is a tendency in some 
quarters in our day to overemphasize the value of this 
work, which cannot serve the best interests in the long 
The doctrine run of the movement itself. To begin with, I cannot see 

of formal dis- rT-.r o* i • ■> • • 

cipiine the reasonableness of Professor bcnpture s view in its 

through man- , . , . 

uai activities, implications, — that training the will in a motor direction 
results in the development of a general will power which 
may be exercised without loss of vigor in the accomplish- 
ment of all tasks whatsoever, whether intellectual, moral, 
or motor. This seems to be true only in the sense that the 
exercise of vohtion in any way doubtless does accomphsh 

^ Cf. with this Harris's view of arrest in mental development, " Psy- 
chologic Foundations of Education," p. 142. 

^ See the Manual Training Magazine, December, 1899. 



MANUAL ACTIVITIES IN EDUCATION 75 

something toward the estabUshment of a general habit 
of voluntary effort and control; and it is of value also in 
so far as it augments the stock of cerebral energy which 
may be drawn upon for the support of voHtion on any 
occasion. But this does not argue that manual training 
is of peculiar value in the cultivation of will power; the 
energizing of the will in deahng with any sort of problems 
leads to these general results. 

Conscious effort in a particular direction, however, 
cultivates the will especially in that direction, and not in 
all directions. Experience has not shown that a car- 
penter or a blacksmith has greater power of discharging 
the duties of a statesman than one who has in the past 
exercised his will in this special field.^ Indeed, manual 
laborers are not distinguished for their will power in any 
department of human activity except their own. We 
should infer from current theory respecting the methods 
of neural action, that exercise of any special kind would 
furrow out channels for the discharge of energy in support 
of just this kind of activity, but not an activity of a differ- 
ent sort. Will would become strong, that is to say, in 
reference to activities of this particular character; but in 
expressing itself in any other way it would have to open up 

^ The author has discussed the principle in detail in his "Education 
as Adjustment," Chaps. XIII and XIV. Compare with this the following: 
Thorndike, "Educational Psychology," Chap. VIII; Bolton, "Fact 
and Fiction in Educational Values," School Review^ February, 1904; 
Swift, "The Psychology and Pedagogy of Learning." 



• 7^ THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

new routes, and what had been achieved in the first kind 
of action would be of no particular account in the present 
situation. So we are not to beUeve that manual exercise 
offers any better facihties for the general training of the 
will than does any other experience which requires an 
equal degree of application; remembering, though, that 
in the early years the organism gives itself most naturally 
to motor activities, while in the later stages of the develop- 
mental process the will may operate in coordinating ideas 
that do not find immediate realization in muscular action ; 
and this is as legitimate and as necessary a function of 
voHtion as directing the hands. 
The principle The large principle involved here is illustrated, I think, 

illustrated in . . , , . 

athletics. in the eiiect of athletic experience, as a form of motor 
exercise, upon the intellectual and moral life. It is a 
matter of common behef that a man may face death on the 
battlefield without flinching, but conduct himself like a 
child in the dentist's chair. It is reported that in a recent 
football game some of the leading men in the team that 
was defeated lost control of themselves emotionally, and 
bawled for hours afterward. It is quite common to hear 
of athletes breaking down when they have lost a game; 
the physical courage bred on the athletic field does not 
stand them in good stead when they face situations where 
muscles will not help them out. A man who has Httle 
courage in the rush line often has enough philosophic cour- 
age to stand defeat heroically in the ordinary situations 



MANUAL ACTIVITIES IN EDUCATION 77 

of life. Again, every one has known men of great physi- 
cal valor who would almost forget their names through 
fright when they arose to address their fellow-citizens. On 
the other hand, men who would without a tremor face an 
audience would not face a center rush in a football match 
under any conditions. PugiUsts must have a great stock 
of brute courage, but can they use this in the social, moral, 
and intellectual situations in which they are placed? 
A certain quondam champion pugilist of the world is 
to-day nothing but a common drunk and street brawler. 
It is not recorded that in the class room in college or in 
the affairs of life outside, the crack athlete is any more 
honest or frank or quick or patient under tribulations 
than the rest of men.^ 

So one might go through with the whole catalogue of Physical 
physical virtues, and it would probably appear that they piied to social 
cannot be utilized at face value in social emergencies. 
A student in the class room in college, as well as on the 
football field, has occasion to use honesty, and to be alert 
and frank, and to take hard treatment philosophically, 
and to keep his temper ; and one thus trained in the class 
room can employ his training to better advantage in situ- 
ations in life like those presented in the class room than 
can the man who is trained principally on the gridiron. 

^ Dean Briggs makes some interesting comments respecting honor 
among college men, — athletes and others, in his " School, College, and 
Character," which see. 



78 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

It would not be wise, then, to give physical contests of any 
sort a prominent place in planning a curriculum for the 
development of virtues needed by an individual in adjust- 
ment to his fellows in all the complex affairs of social 
life, though granting that they should have some place. 
They will be most serviceable, doubtless, if they come early 
in a pupil's development, for they put him in relatively 
simple and crude situations with respect to the exercise 
and development of the virtues of bravery, and the Uke. 
These more or less physical qualities must probably come 
before those of a more spiritual character in the individual's 
development. Courage in the face of possible physical 
disadvantage naturally precedes courage to tell the truth 
in a business pinch when a He will bring some temporary 
advantage. In one's ascent toward the goal of upright, 
honest, courageous, social Hving he is compelled to pass 
through periods when he must exercise the simple and 
largely physical quahties which are, in a way, the pro- 
genitors of the social quahties which will be needed later. 
The theory is that the higher quahties will be more vigor- 
ous if the earUer ones have been developed; the higher 
absorb the lower, as it were, by using the energies which 
have been generated to sustain them. 

I speak of this principle as it is involved in athletics 
because most of us have experience enough to appreciate 
its operation in this field. But it apphes equally well to 
manual training. And this leads to the last word on this 



MANUAL ACTIVITIES IN EDUCATION 79 

subject. With the progress of the child through the withdeveiop- 

. . . . . . ment manual 

schools, manual training as a form of motor activity must give 

way to men- 
should occupy a less and less important place, except tai activities. 

for those pupils whose wills in maturity are to be mani- 
fested primarily in energizing and coordinating muscular 
action. A boy who is to be a carpenter should continue 
in all stages of his educational course to make manual 
training of this sort his most important occupation. But 
a boy who is to deal with questions of jurisprudence or 
medicine or education will suffer arrest in his evolution 
if he be kept too long and continuously at work with his 
hands. His will must come to habitually express itself 
with ease and efficiency in a different way from that of 
the carpenter. But if during the entire developmental 
process his energies be expended most largely in manual 
activities, and not in thinking of a sort not expressible in 
this manner, it seems certain that in maturity he will react 
easiest along the Unes of hand rather than of head work. 
This does not mean, however, that manual training should 
ever be entirely abandoned; it means simply that in the 
higher departments of education it is to receive less and 
less emphasis, except for those whose life work involves 
continual use of hand rather than of head primarily. 

TOPICS FOR INVESTIGATION AND DISCUSSION 

I. Point out the difference in method of procedure in 
teaching manual training dynamically vs. statically. 



8o THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

2. Should manual training be presented at the outset as a 
science or as an art ? What is the difference between the two ? 

3. Observe the children about you with respect to their 
manual activities. What sort of objects do they spontaneously 
construct ? 

4. When do individuals begin to take an interest in making 
perfect type forms? Have you noticed whether children are 
interested in attaining mathematical and aesthetic perfection 
in any of their activities? 

5. What is the psychological order in presenting manual 
training ? What determines this order ? How does it differ 
from the logical order? 

6. Show how you could in manual training permit children 
to begin with the construction of such apparently complex 
objects as a bookshelf and a sled, say, and at the same time 
train them in the technique of their art, using each tool 
employed in the most efficient and economical way, "hewing 
exactly to the line" always, and so on. 

7. Would you ever criticise a pupil's work because it 
seemed crude or inexact, provided he had worked out after a 
fashion the idea he had in mind ? Give your reasons in full. 

8. How would you correlate your work in manual training 
with the rest of the work of the school ? 

9. Should manual training have as important a place in 
the high as in the elementary school ? What are the arguments 
pro and con? 

10. What would you say to an enthusiast in manual training 
who declared that it trained character -better than other studies, 
and so ought to have a more prominent place in the curriculum 
from first to last than any other subject ? 



CHAPTER VI 

THE METHOD OF ACQUIRING ADAPTIVE ACTIVITIES 

The world which the infant enters at birth impinges The helpless- 
ness of the 
upon him in countless ways, physical, social, aesthetic, but infant. 

he does not react upon it except to express his discontent, 
as many think, in an extremely general way, and to swal- 
low his food which he finds ready at hand. If he had any 
desires or ambitions with relation to his environment 
(and happily he does not seem to have), he would be 
utterly unable to realize them. He is as a ship adrift: 
the winds and the waves send him hither and thither, as 
they will. He is dependent absolutely for his existence 
upon the services of his elders, who have learned how to 
adapt themselves to the forces acting upon them. He 
is far more helpless at birth than the chick or the calf or 
the colt or the kitten or the puppy. Yet he is not static ; 
on the contrary, he is in action most of the time during 
waking moments. But his activities, except in a few in- 
stances, have no purposeful relation to the world about 
him. They are simply impulsive, to use Preyer's term: 
or one might say spontaneous with Bain, Miss Shinn, and 
others. Even before birth there are activities of this 

G 8l 



82 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

character ; ^ they occur in the embryo before the reflex 
mechanism is capable of functioning, so they cannot be of 
the nature of reactions upon an environment in an effort 
to become adjusted thereto. These primitive movements 
are probably due to the more or less spontaneous release 
of energy, generated during the process of metaboHsm, 
in developing nerve centers. Hoffding ^ calls attention to 
the fact that the simplest organisms have power of moving 
without being stimulated from without. Internal changes 
liberate energy, as in the case of the amoeba. This power 
is possessed, he says, by all organic cells. But the occa- 
sion for speaking of this kind of movement at all must not 
be lost sight of; it has no direct reference to adaptation 
to an environing world, although, as we shall see, it fur- 
nishes the data out of which adaptive activities may be 
developed. 

During the first twelve or fifteen weeks of the child's 
life, and for a longer period possibly in many cases, a 
variety of stimulations keep him in action a considerable 
part of the time, but yet one could hardly say that he was 

^ See, for instance, Preyer, "The Mind of the Child," Vol. I, p. 201 
(New York, 1888). In his observations on the development of the chick, 
Preyer found that movements occurred which must have been incited 
from within ; there was no external stimulus to arouse them, for they ap- 
peared without any alteration in the surroundings, as he thought. One 
can appreciate, however, that it is almost impossible to determine 
whether the surroundings of the developing chick are kept absolutely 
uniform. 

2 "Outlines of Psychology," p. 308. 



THE METHOD OF ACQUIRING ADAPTIVE ACTIVITIES 83 

reacting upon his environments. Rough clothing, for 
instance, will incite activity in the child's legs and arms 
and vocal organs, but these are not intelligently and spe- 
cifically related to the source of his troubles, though there 
may be a sort of bhnd confidence that by kicking and cry- 
ing rehef will be obtained. Looking at the matter neu- 
rologically, we may suppose that dermal irritation hberates 
energy in the central nervous system, and this runs out 
through the channels which have been employed hereto- 
fore in the production of very simple and very general 
impulsive movements. It is not confined to just the route 
that will lead to adaptation to the particular forces now 
acting on the child. The infant's reactions are practically 
all characterized by lack of definiteness, of specific appro- 
priateness which would make them effective. Observe 
a four-months-old child when he beholds his mother 
after a period of separation. He is very evidently eager 
for her to take him in her arms, but he cannot do much 
on his own part toward bringing about the desired end. 
He is active enough, but his actions are not properly 
correlated with the object arousing them. They are 
riotous, chaotic, not purposeful or adaptive, except in 
the most general sense. From one point of view there is 
method in his madness ; but if he had not been cast amid 
friends who are alert to catch every expression so as to 
serve him, he would fare badly indeed. The infant 
instinctively expresses pleasure and displeasure, but he 



84 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

must wait upon others to decipher just what he desires 
and to minister to his needs. He can do nothing but make 
his wants known in a very coarse, nonspecific manner. 

All students of mental development have noted this 
first epoch in the child's career. Whatever actions he 
performs that appear to have rudimentary intelhgence 
in them are after all of a spontaneous or reflex character. 
His hands roam about aimlessly, or with only the most 
general aim of encountering some object accidentally, and 
when they come in contact with an object they set out with 
it on the journey to the mouth. But he is probably 
quite unaware of precisely what occurs, and not at all 
responsible for it in any conscious or voHtional way. It 
just happens; and he is in all hkelihood not even an 
appreciative onlooker, at the outset. 

Morgan ^ can hardly have an inexperienced babe in 
mind when he says that as he is "gazing about here and 
there, a sweet is brought within his range of vision. So 
soon as it falls within the margin of the visual field, the 
eyes are so moved as to bring it to the focus of vision; 
the hand is even stretched out to touch and seize it, and 
it is conveyed to the mouth." Such an act would be im- 
possible without a great amount of preHminary experi- 
ence ^ of a kind to be described presently. We must not 

^ See his "Psychology for Teachers," pp. 55-56. 
' The earliest I have seen an infant perform a purposeful act was in 
the fourteenth week. Then she placed (in a faltering and uncertain 



THE METHOD OF ACQUIRING ADAPTIVE ACTIVITIES 85 

confuse the child's accidental successes with purposeful, 
deliberate action. 

For a number of weeks, then, the child's activities are The first 

step in 

wholly spontaneous or reflex. They seem to go on of their gaining 

adaptive 

own accord, all running in a few instinctive routes ; they activities, 
are not in any respect controlled by the needs of adapta- 
tion to special situations. But by the fourth month, say, 
there are evidences that some correlation between par- 
ticular impressions and appropriate reactions thereupon 
is beginning to take place. At the outset, this correlation 
comes about in an accidental manner. Complex series 
or data chance to get into consciousness at the same 
instant, or in immediate succession, and they adhere 
together in this way, making a pattern of experience, 
let us say. There may be data gained from vision (a), 
including some objective point, as the bottle of milk and 
the appearance of the hand in reaching it ; then there may 
be data gained from extension of the arm (b) ; from 
touching the object (c) ; and grasping it (d) ; from bring- 
ing the hand to the mouth (e) ; and gustatory data (/). 
Now these partial processes tend to stick together in this 

way, it should be added) both hands upon her mother's face while she 
was looking at her. This was not mere accident, for the act was repeated 
several times in the space of a few minutes, and there was not much 
random movement accompanying this. It is, of course, extremely diffi- 
cult to tell just when such a deliberate act occurs for the first time, since 
the child may accidentally hit the mark, and the observer is likely in 
such a case to be deceived. 



86 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

particular pattern (a-b-c-d-e-j), which has proved service- 
able in adaptation, and the disposition will be for the pat- 
tern to become completed whenever the first factor thereof 
(a) comes into consciousness.^ Of course, it is a long 
process, full of strain and struggle, before this complex 
act will become so definitely estabHshed that it may be 
performed readily and with absolute certainty. It should 
be remembered that the child's earhest reaction upon his 
bottle was a general activity of his whole body, arms, 
features, vocal apparatus, trunk, and legs. The visual 
datum (a) liberated energy which apparently stimulated 
the entire nervous system. But in acquiring this adaptive 
act the energy must be directed into particular motor 
channels, and in a certain sequential order. The first 
reaction is a very general one ; the second is a speciahzed 
or particularized one. And the process of speciaUzing 
in motor acts consists in directing the attention upon 
certain special data of experience gained originally through 
spontaneous execution. Four-months-old children can 
be observed watching their hands ';or several minutes at a 
time as they wander about more or less mechanically. 
If they chance to come in contact with an object they 

^ In my "Education as Adjustment," Chaps. IX and X, I have dis- 
cussed the principle of dynamogenesis — the tendency for all stimulation 
or impression to produce motor response. Now the particular response 
which any special impression will produce is determined by the pattern 
of which it is an element. This point will be worked out in detail in the 
course of this chapter. 



THE METHOD OF ACQUIRING ADAPTIVE ACTIVITIES 87 

reflexly start with it for the mouth. Now, adaptive 
actioxi is just beginning to be estabhshed in this simple 
experience. The data furnished by the eye get connected 
with those derived from the hand and arm in the process 
of grasping an object, and conveying it to the mouth, and 
also with those derived from the events transpiring at the 
terminal station, because these data have been gained 
simultaneously or in immediate sequence. All data tend 
upon repetition to coalesce, forming a simple reactive 
system, — impression and motor response which brings 
the organism into advantageous relations with the object 
yielding the impression. When the year-old child sees 
his bottle, say, this stimulus releases in order the actions 
which have previously given him pleasure; there is no 
longer mere muscular excitement or fruitless action. 

It needs to be impressed that this adaptive action is not 
learned in a day ; it is a matter of months, not days. One 
may observe a child acquiring the abihty to deliberately 
grasp an apple, as an instance. Passing over the purely 
accidental stage in his first essays, we may note that in 
the beginning of voluntary control his hands move out 
in the general direction of the object, but he has not yet 
learned to make precise adjustments. He is Hkely to go 
wide of the mark, to overshoot or undershoot, and he 
does not know how to correct his mistake. He first 
makes a general not a precise or special adjustment. The 
parent must put the apple in his hands. But day after 



88 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

day he keeps trying, ceaselessly trying, and noting in a 
more or less distinct way ^ the outcome of various acts ; 
and to state the principle in a general way, by selecting 
the adjustments and repeating them, he grows in efficiency 
until in time just the right processes come to prevail over 
the useless ones, and the complex adaptive act is learned. 
Bain ^ has said that the chief requisite in the develop- 
ment of dehberate out of random movements is that the 
attention should be directed upon the method of performing 
a given movement (which occurs first spontaneously) 
and its outcome. This results in fusing into a system or 
series a number of inherently unrelated events. Then 
later when attention is directed upon what was originally a 
separate term of the series the whole will tend to become 
reestablished. But it is not quite correct to say that the 
learner must attend primarily to the motor processes in- 
volved in performing an action ; it appears rather that he 
must be mainly conscious of the object to be dealt with, 
which includes the object as a thing of perception, and its 
value for the individual. The motor adjustments are 

^ Of course, the learner's ability to attend to the details of an act he is 
learning must at the outset be very general and nonspecialized. He 
probably cannot "see" in a much more particularized way than he can 
execute, though the modus operandi of accomplishing an accidental act 
may to some extent doubtless become consciously apprehended. 

2 See his "The Emotions and the Will," p. 309. Cf. Baldwin, "Men- 
tal Development, Methods, and Processes," Chap. VII, especially pp. 
180-204. Also Bair, " The Development of Voluntary Control," Psych. 
Rev., September, 1901. 



THE METHOD OF ACQUIRING ADAPTIVE ACTIVITIES 89 

at first largely represented in consciousness as kinaesthetic 
feeling, and this speedily becomes marginal. The prin- 
ciple is illustrated in the case of an adult learning golf 
or tennis. At the outset he gives a certain amount of focal 
attention to his stance, the manner of grasping the club or 
racket, the serving, and so on; but very soon these pro- 
cesses are lost sight of, and the player simply keeps his 
eye on the hall. As one observes children learning to 
adapt themselves to the world, every sign indicates that 
they are for the most part conscious only of objects to 
be dealt with and their values ; and the muscular processes 
required for adaptation get selected in a more or less 
subconscious way.^ Of course, viewing the matter 
logically the learner must take account focally of all his 
movements, and note which succeed and which fail; 
and while this is doubtless true of much that he does when 
he reaches the reflective stage, when the ends he wishes 
to attain require very complex adaptive processes, still 
it does not appear to be so important at the outset. 

^ However, Bain cites an instance of movement claiming explicit 
attention — the moving of the ear — which, it is easy to see, might, if 
it should occur spontaneously, be sufEciently novel to attract attention. 
There would be no objective end toward which the movement would be 
directed, and so attention could occupy itself wholly with the sensations 
arising from the movement itself. But such actions as this are of such 
slight importance that they may be left out of account, and the principle 
may stand, — that in deliberate action in the beginning the attention of 
the learner is devoted mainly to the ends to be attained, and not to the 
means of attaining them. 



go 



THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 



In V.'s twentieth month I tried one day to get him to 
imitate me in throwing a ball toward the ceihng. He had 
had experience in tossing a ball, and it had often gone 
in the direction of the ceiling, but probably always without 
dehberate attempt to send it there. Now when he tried 
to do this particular thing his arm became rigid, he could 
not let go of the ball at the proper moment, and when it 
finally was released it went toward the floor. He made a 
great effort to do it, as was apparent from the tension of 
muscles in his face and body and of the hand not used 
as well as the one employed. He kept at the task for 
several minutes, and as the muscles became less tense and 
the ball was released more readily he succeeded in giving 
it an upward direction a few times, though it did not reach 
the ceiling in any case. Nevertheless, he was greatly 
pleased at his partial successes, and he wanted to keep 
trying it. The test was repeated every day for some time 
with the result that at the end of four weeks there was 
no longer any doubt but that he had acquired the abihty 
to throw the ball up when he wished to. Most of the 
original strain and tension and excess movement had 
disappeared, so far as I could tell. 

I tried V. at about this time in executing other simple 
acts which he had never performed dehberately; for 
instance, in turning a key in a door lock. He apparently 
regarded me carefully while I turned it, and then he took 
hold of it and pushed it in and out. He was unable 



THE METHOD OF ACQUIRING ADAPTIVE ACTIVITIES QI 

to reproduce just the thing he observed. He probably saw 
only what was nearest to what he had previously done. 
When he took hold of the key his reaction was pulhng in 
and out, because this was the sort of reaction that had 
occurred in similar situations in the past. After he made 
a number of unsuccessful trials I took his hand and turned 
it for him and repeated it a few times. Then he caught 
the idea and worked away by himself, pulling in and 
out more than turning at first ; but he had the notion of 
how the thing was to be done, and it was not long before 
he was master of the art. These examples are typical of 
well-nigh innumerable instances I have observed, all 
conforming to the same general principle of learning. 

In the acquisition of any new act there appears to be an 
excess of action involving muscles which should remain 
quiescent, or practically so. The novice is unable to Learning 
energize just the muscles in just the coordinations he excessive 

activity. 

wishes; new actions must always be diflferentiated out 
of a mass of more general activities. When V. was 
learning to throw the ball up, much of his fundamental 
muscular system appeared to be in action, and the same 
thing could be seen when he was working at the key, when 
he began to write, and so on ad libitum. The novice 
is lavish in the expenditure of energy ; and looking at the 
matter neurologically it would seem that the purpose of 
this is to cause an overflow from old channels into new 
ones, so that new activities may get started. Many of 



92 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

the activities occurring in the excess display are appar- 
ently irrelevant, since they do not seem to be related at 
all to the one aimed at. However, as a result of this ex- 
cess, the adjustment desired may accidentally appear, and 
if it gives pleasure it will make a deeper impression than 
the others, and so will be hit more easily in future trials. 
Of course, the process of differentiating the special move- 
ment from the original complex must be a very involved 
one, and this explains the difficulty of the child's acquiring 
any art, even so simple a thing as winking or sucking 
through a straw, so that he can do it with certainty and 
without excess or waste.^ Learning new adjustments, let 
it be repeated, consists mainly in differentiating special 
movements from a general body of movements in which 
the special ones are embodied. The reason the child 
cannot wink dehberately with one eye when he first makes 
the attempt is because this has no distinctive meaning or 
existence in consciousness. He has a wink-both-eyes idea, 
using a popular term; but he has no wink-the- left-eye 

^ Bair, op. cit., pp. 506-510, illustrates the principle by experiments 
upon adults. He gives the results of investigations upon energizing the 
muscles which move the ear. He first moves it mechanically, which 
gives the subject some impression of how it feels. Then the subject, 
endeavoring to enervate the special muscle, enervates a number of other 
muscles about it; but through direction of attention upon the peculiar 
sensations of the ear movement this gradually becomes more permanent 
than the others, attention gets the power of isolating it until finally it can 
be enervated by itself alone. This is exactly such a process as can be 
observed in all the child's learning. 



THE METHOD OF ACQUIRING ADAPTIVE ACTIVITIES 93 

idea. So he has a general purse-the-lips idea, but no suck- 
in-with-the-lips idea. The principle has universal appli- 
cation in every stage of mental development. The adult 
learning to pitch a curved ball has a project-straight- 
ahead idea which will enable him to send it forward, but 
he lacks the simple-twist-of-the-wrist idea which will 
give his ball a rotary motion. This he must get as a 
process of specialization of the general projecting move- 
ment. The same is true, of course, of his learning tennis 
or billiards or golf or any manual art. Take again a man 
learning to pronounce German, say Ich. He gets the fun- 
damental combination, that denoted by Ik perhaps, 
because this combination is nearest his experience, but he 
misses the pecuUar element which differentiates Ich from 
Ik. Any one who has studied German or French, or 
better still who has taught either, will have numerous exam- 
ples to illustrate the principle. So look where you may 
you will always see an individual, be he young or old, 
who is learning an act of any kind trying to differentiate 
the special coordinations which make it new from the 
more famiHar and general processes in which they are 
incorporated, so that the new one may be executed without 
all the unnecessary accompaniments. 

It seems that nature has taken pains to provide all 
young things that have to learn activities, that do not live 
out their lives on the plane of instinct as the chick does, — 
she provides all learners with a tendency to be incessantly 



94 



THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 



in action, some of which is apparently purposeless; but 
out of this exuberance will come in time something of 
worth. There appears to be no way to secure advance 
except through experimentation, or play perhaps, or 
curiosity.* It should be noted further that as the individ- 
ual discovers higher and higher activities, the lower ones 
decUne to a certain extent, or become subordinate. S. 
greatly enjoyed reaching for his mother's face from the 
beginning of the fourth month on, but after the seventh 
month he seemed to be less interested in this activity, but 
spent most of his minutes at mealtime engaging in little 
games, as bo-peep or something of the kind. The original 
action occurred thereafter only as it was one of the factors 
in a more complex series constituting some game ; and the 
example is, I think, typical of most of the activities per- 
formed throughout the whole of the developmental period. 
It seems that when one is mastering an activity he repeats 
it in practice only until it can be performed with surety 
and ease. When the child begins to walk he soon aban- 
dons the original creeping movements which he once 
practiced so enthusiastically. At eighteen months the 
child is practicing running and cUmbing stairs and tear- 
ing paper; but at five years he does not engage in these 
activities except as they have become elements in more 
complex ones. The child of five runs to catch people 

^ The educational implications of this principle seem very important 
And will receive due attention later. 



THE METHOD OF ACQUIRING ADAPTIVE ACTIVITIES 95 

or to run away from them, or to roll a hoop, and so on, 
whereas in the beginning he practiced running with no 
ulterior end in view. 

At eight H. is busy a good deal of the time in reading, 
playing at society with her companions, caring for her 
doll, cutting patterns out of paper, producing designs 
with her paints, using her pencil in drawing, and so on. 
At three years there was Uttle interest in activities of this 
sort; instead she was climbing and running and pound- 
ing, and, in short, using her muscles in all manner of ways 
for the mere pleasure of exercising them in the accom- 
plishment of simple feats. But now she has reached 
the point where she can perform these simple tasks very 
easily, and she seems to have abandoned them. The 
principle is illustrated in the use of language. By the 
twelfth month or thereabouts the child's vocahzations 
occasionally correspond to some of the words spoken in 
his environment, and with the aid of his elders he detects 
the resemblance. Then he repeats the combinations con- 
tinuously until they are mastered, when he lets them go. 
But whenever he makes a new conquest of the words he 
hears about him he keeps going over them until they are 
fixed in habit. And this tendency is seen at every period 
of life. Even an adult is apt to repeat to himself a strange 
word until the vocal mechanism becomes adapted to ex- 
press it readily. At eleven years activities which were 
very prominent at eight have again been supplanted by 



96 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

Others more involved, more intricate intellectually and 
socially. And so development works on, carrying the 
individual ever upward into more complex adjustments, 
making what is valuable in the present secure in auto- 
matic action, and providing for constant growth by 
causing the new task to appeal with great force to the 
individual so that it will receive his attention. 

It should perhaps be said in quahfication of what has 
gone before, that it is impossible to conceive that the 
child could learn absolutely de novo such adaptive move- 
ments as have been referred to. The experiences of the 
race in correlating movements appropriately with the 
world without must prove of incalculable advantage to 
the individual in his own learning. We have seen that 
the child inherits a few definite adaptive movements; 
and why should not the basis for others be inherited, so 
that with a small amount of experience they may be made 
definite? One can hardly imagine how the child could 
so rapidly become possessed of such a vast number of 
adaptive movements if there had not been some prepara- 
tion made for him by his ancestors. It seems probable 
that many, perhaps most, of the child's serviceable actions 
which he appears to acquire ah inito, are really in the pro- 
cess of becoming reflex in the race, although, as a matter 
of fact, only a few have as yet reached this advanced stage. 
A certain amount of experiment is essential in order to 
make these latter efifective, but something has already been 



THE METHOD OF ACQUIRING ADAPTIVE ACTIVITIES 97 

accomplished ; the routes have been estabhshed, and they 
need only a little smoothing out to make them passable — 
some much less than others, of course.* If one will 
follow a child day by day from birth onward he will see 
adjustments being learned so speedily and with the de- 
tailed steps so obscured that he is forced to the behef that 
there must have been a considerable amount of internal 
preparation for these adaptations. It is inconceivable 
that experience alone could accomphsh so much in so 
brief a time, or with such slight emphasis upon many of 
the details of learning. It is suggestive to compare the 
speed with which the child makes some of his very complex 
adjustments with the laborious way in which the school- 
boy masters the relatively simple acts of writing and 
drawing, which have been invented so recently in race 
history. 

TOPICS FOR INVESTIGATION AND DISCUSSION 

1. Have you ever observed the differences in the abilities 
of the young of lower animals and their parents ? See if you 
can tell what a hen can do that its newly hatched chick cannot. 
What can a dog do that its puppy cannot ? In the same way 
compare a cat and its kitten, a horse and its colt, and so on. 

2. How long is a chick helpless so that it must be cared for 

^ See Kirkpatrick, " Development of Voluntary Movement," Psych. 
Rev., Vol. 6, pp. 275-281 (May, 1899). Also Baird, "The Influence of 
Accommodation and Convergence upon the Perception of Depth," Am. 
Journ. 0] Psych., Vol. 14, pp. 150-200 (April, 1903). 



98 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

by its parent ? Speak in the same way of the puppy, the calf, 
the colt. 

3. How long must the human child be cared for by its 
parents? What is the significance of this long period of im- 
maturity in the human species? 

4. Would it be an advantage or otherwise if the child 
came into the world ready to take care of himself in most 
respects ? 

5. Could you speak of the child's earliest activities as 
adaptive ? Why ? 

6. Point out the most marked differences between the 
activities of a month-old and a ten-year-old child. 

7. Show why a child cannot place his hand on his mother's 
face the first time he makes the attempt. 

8. Have you learned to write the Greek or German script ? 
If so, did you make each letter exactly right the first time you 
tried? Explain fully your experience. 

9. Could a child of five learn to write German script as 
readily as you could yourself? Why? 

10. Why does not a child of five, say, continue to do the 
same things over and over again all his Hfe? What is there 
about the normal child that makes him different from the idiot 
in this respect? 



CHAPTER VII 

THE METHOD OF AC9UmiNG IMITATIVE ACTIVITIES 

In the preceding chapter we glanced at the develop- 
ment of that variety of adaptive movements that enable 
the individual to deal accurately and effectively with the 
objects in his environment. For the most part these 
movements have to do with obtaining or avoiding or 
manipulating things, though some of them, as jumping, 
for example, do not appear to have such an end in view 
directly. Still even in this last sort of action the child 
seeks to bring his body to a given point ; and this amounts 
to his trying to secure the point as an external thing. 
Keeping in mind the general principle, we must now turn 
to adaptive activities of a somewhat different character. 
If one will make up a face before a child of three who is 
not deeply engaged at the moment it will probably be 
imitated at once more or less completely, and commonly 
without deUberate intent on the imitator's part. His 
action is a sort of echo. When children are beginning 
to talk, at two years or so, they often repeat the words Thephe- 

, , , , . ,., . , nomenaof 

they hear about them m a parrothke way, seemingly as mimicry, 
mechanically as a musical instrument will sometimes re- 

Lorc. ^ 



lOO THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

produce tones of the human voice. And I speak of lan- 
guage merely as a typical activity. 

The phenomenon in question is altogether too familiar 
and has been too generally described by numerous writers 
on mental development to require many instances in 
illustration, though Mr. Cooley has recently taken ex- 
ception ^ to the prevaihng view that children are great 
imitators. He thinks the child likes to be let alone to 
work out his own ideas. But where do his ideas come 
from? Of course, every normal child wishes to carry out 
his own undertakings ; he does not Uke to have an adult or 
any one else break in on his activities ; but this does not 
mean that he is not an imitator. It simply means that he 
desires to be left free so that he may imitate, that he may 
really by his own efifort reproduce in his own way what is 
going on about him. He does not want some one else to 
do his imitating; this, I think, is the explanation of his 
resistance to adult interference. It is clear that, consider- 
ing the needs of adaptation, imitation is of the utmost 
consequence, and the tendency to imitate seems to have 
been carefully provided for in the instinctive equipment 
of the individual. It does not alter the case to say that 
it is largely a subconscious affair, which it undoubtedly 
is. The child does not usually copy the people around him 
for the conscious end of assimilating himself with them, 
but nevertheless he becomes adapted thereby just as 
effectively as if he dehberately planned the business. 

1 In his "Human Nature and the Social Order," pp. 18-28. 



THE METHOD OF ACQUIRING IMITATIVE ACTIVITIES lOI 

All observers agree that there is probably no imita- when does 

imitatioQ 

tion during the first three months of hfe. Some have begin? 
detected what they considered to be imitation at the 
beginning of the fourth month, but in the case of the chil- 
dren I have observed the first clearly imitative act of 
which I could be sure did not appear before the seventh 
month. True, one may chatter to a four-months child, 
and he will respond in kind, but it seems likely that his 
chattering is simply one form of a general motor excite- 
ment. The arms and legs, as well as the vocal organs, 
wiU be actively in motion. And then the chattering may 
often be heard when the child is playing with his rattle, or 
even lying on his back and regarding the ceihng. It is 
easy to be deceived respecting the child's first imitations, 
for when he is much stimulated and is running through 
the whole gamut of his motor accomplishments, as he is 
constantly doing the first months, there is a good chance 
of some of his performances occasionally resembhng those 
that have stimulated him, and the accidental resemblance 
will be taken by a novice to be purposeful. 

Preyer * reports that by the end of the fifteenth week he 
observed a case of imitation in his son Axel. When the 
father would purse his lips, Axel would do the same. As 
evidence that it was an imitative act Preyer says it was 
executed less perfectly than when it was done without any 

^ "The Mind of the Child," Vol. I, p. 283. See, in connection with 
this, Royce, Century, Vol. XLVIII, pp. 137-145. 



I02 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

attempt to reproduce the copy. Now, it seems probable, 
to say the least, that the imperfectness of Axel's pursing 
was due to the distraction of the father's presence, rather 
than to any effect of the child's perception upon his action. 
If he had really imitated, he should have achieved a more 
rather than a less perfect expression, for the model must 
have been an improvement upon the infantile execution. 
But while there is this doubt regarding the imitative 
character of the activities of a four-months-old child, 
there can be no question of the practice of imitation by the 
seventh or eighth month in the majority of children. 
Then by the twelfth month the child is repeating many 
of the activities occurring about him, such as are not 
beyond his stage of development. Up until this period he 
has lived largely from within, in the sense that he has 
given expression to his instincts mainly ; but now he begins 
to take account of his environment, and to reflect the 
social phases thereof. His activities, which were originally 
unorganized, random, now begin to be arranged into 
certain systems that reproduce the types presented in 
his surroundings. But while the child copies, yet his imi- 
tations have a certain individuahty. He does not hit the 
mark exactly in his talking, or facial expressions, or per- 
formances of any sort. Take, for example, the imita- 
tion of reading that comes in due course with most children. 
The imitator seizes a book when he hears some one read- 
ing, and he chatters to himself. He reproduces the simple 



THE METHOD OF ACQUIRING IMITATIVE ACTIVITIES I03 

fundamental factor, but not the special thing that charac- 
terizes this activity and differentiates it from all others. 

The child's limitations are just his own individual Appercep- 
activities in general features hke those of his model. I imitation, 
have made many experiments with children up to the 
eighth year in causing them to imitate arm and bodily 
movements of every sort, and hnguistic combinations, and 
it has seemed to me in all cases that they reproduce the 
general type of thing which they have been accustomed 
to do, but they overlook the novel particulars. The 
younger the imitator the more certain is this to be the 
case. For instance, in moving the arms out horizontally 
with a wavehke motion, a la Delsarte, and back again 
in the same fashion, the children repeat the fundamental 
characteristic, but the arms are kept perfectly straight, 
the wrists rigid, and the fingers tense. Even though I 
call special attention to the details of the movement, they 
appear to see and appreciate only what is to some extent 
familiar to them through their own spontaneous per- 
formances. In teaching a few children between five and 
seven some gymnastic movements, I found that simply 
performing before them was quite ineffective. I had to 
actually manipulate their arms and bodies until I got 
them to execute the movements in question. Repeating 
this mechanical process a few times, I found I could then 
get the children to attend to the details of the movements, 
whereas by simply looking at me they saw the general, 



I04 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

but not the particular, characteristics." Their attention 
picked out only the famihar element in the complex whole, 
the thing they had often done. This principle applies 
with even greater force to the imitation of speech, writing, 
and the like. 
Theprin- Even in the case of an adult imitating new activities, 

ciple illus- 
trated in the principle here in question may be seen operating. 

adult imi- 
tation. Special coordinations which the imitator has not had his 

attention drawn to specifically in the effort to perform 
them, he will overlook in his early imitations. He will 
reproduce, that is to say, the general character of the com- 
plex act he observes, but not the individual details which 
he has not taken special account of. In the game of golf, 
for example, the coach takes a certain characteristic 
position before his pupil. He grasps and swings his 
clubs in a pecuhar manner, but the novice does not notice 
the pecuharities of the "addressing" position, or the par- 
ticular coordinations in "driving," or "putting," or any 
of the other strokes. It is probable that the novice really 
does not see anything but the general upright position 
in "addressing." The eye reports, "the coach stands 
erect," and immediately the motor system translates 
"stands erect" into the habitual erect position of the 
novice. The eye is not very critical in reporting on novel 
actions ; it regards its mission as fulfilled when it gets data 
from the models in the environment to reinstate in the 
imitator his habitual attitudes and postures nearest like 
those presented in the copy. 



THE METHOD OF ACQUIRING IMITATIVE ACTIVITIES I05 

If the coach or model be a good teacher, he will not trust 
to the spontaneous work of the eye; he will compel it to 
take account of special coordinations by coercing atten- 
tion to them. If these coordinations be quite new, the 
wise teacher will not depend upon the eye alone, but he 
will actually manipulate the muscles of his pupil, and so 
give him the feeling of the special adjustments he is trying 
to estabhsh. The pupil will be made to energize certain 
muscles and relax others, and the tutor will place his 
hands, shoulders, and so on, in the desired positions, 
and mechanically aid the learner in making the right co- 
ordinations in giving his stroke. Thus seeing how to 
perform an action depends in large degree upon one's 
already having had motor experience in performing it. 
The movement to be imitated must already have been 
performed spontaneously and have attracted the per- 
former's attention ; and then the sense factors comprising 
the image of the movement become connected with the 
motor data relating to the execution of the movement, 
so that when the image is revived it will tend to realize 
itself in the movement.^ 

The image of any movement which I am capable of The psy- 
chology of 
performing may be reinstated by perceiving the move- imitation. 

ment in another, and then I will act somewhat like that 

other; that is, I will imitate him. Imitation is thus seen 

* I simply touch upon the educational bearings of the principle here. 
The subject is considered in some detail in the next chapter. 



Io6 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

to be a more or less mechanical thing in its simplest phases. 
The child in his spontaneous Hfe is mapping himself 
out, so to speak. He is acting in all manner of ways in 
expression of the impulses bequeathed to him by heredity. 
Many of his actions are in their origin random, or largely 
so, in the sense that they do not occur for the purpose of 
attaining certain definite, purposeful ends. But never- 
theless they occasionally add to the child's pleasure in some 
way, and so he is attracted by them and organizes the 
motor and sense data into a system, so that the sense 
factors may set off the appropriate movements without 
any delay. Further, the apprehension of the activity in 
other people amounts to practically the same in its motor 
reference as if the image had appeared spontaneously or 
after reflection in one's own mind. 

Whenever the dog barks in the child's presence, or the 
wind whistles through the cracks, or the kitten purrs or 
rolls over on the floor, or his brother or sister cries or 
laughs or runs or does anything else he has consciously 
done, he will tend to repeat the activity. This tendency 
decreases with age, for as the years pass one's activities 
get ever more completely estabhshed in definite channels. 
His modes of reaction, in all this implies, become fixed, 
so that one adopts new modes with ever increasing difficulty. 
A sort of drainage system for the energies of the organism 
comes gradually to be established, and this renders it 
increasingly difficult to get a supply of energy for the sup- 



THE METHOD OF ACQUIRING IMITATIVE ACTIVITIES I07 

port of new activities. Images of movements not within The course 

of develop- 

the circle of habitual ones receive less and less attention mentwith 

respect to 

as one approaches maturity; and in time they make imitative- 

ness. 

httle or no impression upon the system of images that 
have gained the right of way. In popular language, 
a man's "character" means just the sum of these settled 
modes of action which are practically unalterable. They 
resist all change ; the man moves about among his fellows, 
but their personahties rarely find their way into his springs 
of conduct. Ordinarily a man who has lived under 
fairly uniform conditions behaves at forty-five much as 
he did at twenty-five; his individuahty has preserved 
itself from effacement by the other selves he has touched 
for twenty years. 

But things are different with the child. He has the 
equipment needed for action, but for the most part he has 
no definite mode of using it, so he patterns after any copy 
that is presented to him. He is plastic, as we say, or 
impressionable with reference to the personahties that he 
comes in contact with. Of course, the young child does 
not reproduce all the expressions of the personahties he 
encounters. He takes the very simplest things at the 
outset — pursing the hps as a type ; then those a httle more 
involved, bo-peep and simple gestures and facial expres- 
sions, and vocalizations and postures, for example. 
Then later he copies more complex acts involved in the 
accomphshment of relatively simple tasks of some kind, 



Io8 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

as carpentry or farming or baking or nursing, and so on. 
As he grows facile in these direct and very concrete ac- 
tivities he responds to ever more compHcated ones in which 
the mental factors become more important, and the motor 
factors are less in evidence; he plays at school, for in- 
stance, or preaching, or society formalities. He comes, 
last of all, in his high school or college period, to imitate 
the social, poKtical, rehgious, and what may be called the 
scientific activities going on in his environment, or in the 
books he reads. In this last period there may still be 
some remains of his earlier responses; he may copy the 
modes of speech and the manners of his comrades, but this 
is not as prominent as in his early days, and the things he 
copies are more subtle, less conspicuous things which as 
a child he would have missed.* The line of march is 
ever from the relatively simple and elementary to the more 
involved and complex. 

TOPICS FOR INVESTIGATION AND DISCUSSION 

I. If you have ever studied French, or any foreign language, 
or if you have ever heard people speaking in a strange tongue, 

^ Mr. Russell's collection of imitations (" Child Observations: 
Imitation and Allied Activities ") shows in an interesting way the grad- 
ual ascent of the child from a stage of copying very direct and simple acts 
through stages of constantly increasing complexity. He cites over a 
thousand cases of imitation classified according to the ages of the imi- 
tators, ranging from one year to fifteen years. See also Frear, Fed. Sent., 
Vol. IV, pp. 382-386. 



THE METHOD OF ACQUIRING IMITATIVE ACTIVITIES I09 

say whether you were able to reproduce precisely what was 
spoken to you. If you could not, say just why. 

2. Why does an Irishman, or other foreigner, who comes 
to this country after he is mature always retain a brogue ? Do 
you think such a person actually hears our words exactly as we 
do? Why? Why does a German who has learned to write 
English script after he has become mature always show traces 
of the German script in his English forms ? 

3. Can you pitch a curved ball? Have you ever watched 
an expert do it? Did you see every detail of his movements 
in pitching the ball ? 

4. Why is it so unusual for a novice to follow exactly his 
gymnastic teacher in the execution of simple exercises? 

5. Why cannot a child of six, say, who has a very wide 
range of vocal power, run a scale the first time he tries in imi- 
tation of his teacher? 

6. Are children more or less imitative than adults ? Why ? 
Are children of five more or less imitative than children of ten ? 
of fifteen ? 

7. Observe the children about you with respect to their 
imitative activities, and see if you can make a list of the activi- 
ties most commonly and persistently imitated at different ages 
from five onward. 

8. Why does not a normal child of ten, say, continue to 
imitate the same activities all his life ? Why does an idiot do so ? 

9. Why does a child of five not imitate all that is going on 
about him? Discuss the same question with reference to 
adults in different vocations and different social environments. 

10. Does imitation assist the individual in adapting himself 
to the world ? Is it ever a handicap to him ? Will the child 
who imitates most readily have an advantage in adaptation? 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE TEACHING OF SCHOOL-ROOM ARTS 

If now we glance at the way in which the child ac- 
quires such an art as drawing or writing, we shall see that 
he proceeds in the same manner as he does in mastering 
any other voluntary or imitative act. There is in the 
beginning a period of more or less random movements. 
The muscles seem to run their own course without much 
control from the image to be reproduced. If the child 
of four has definite visual images of the forms to be exe- 
cuted (and the probability is that he lacks such images), 
they have at any rate not yet gained mastery over the motor 
apparatus employed in their reproduction. Without 
doubt he is governed to a shght extent by his observations 
of what those about him do with pens and pencils, but he 
has appreciated only the most general characteristic of 
these activities — simply making lines. He has missed 
most of what pertains to the making of particular kinds 
of lines as elements of particular form-complexes. 

This is the scribble stage in writing or drawing, to use 
Mr. Clark's term,^ a stage which has been observed by 

* See his " The Child's Attitude toward Perspective Problems " ; 
" Studies in Education " (Barnes), Vol. I, p. 283. 



THE TEACHING OF SCHOOL-ROOM ARTS III 

Barnes,^ Cooke,^ Sully,^ Lukens/ Baldwin/ Shinn," 
Burk/ and others.® This stage in the mastery of these 
arts resembles in a way the first period of the child's 
motor Ufe when most of his movements are expressed at 
random, when his activities occur without direct reference 
to the needs of correlation with the world without. " By 
the fifth year, though, the child is commencing to bring his 
motor processes into proper relation with the images to 
be reproduced. His drawings now show that his hand 
and his eye are taking some account of one another ; that 
is to say, he is beginning to acquire the power of delib- 
erately reproducing a copy. Before this time, according to 
my observation, a child will not attend in any thorough- 
going way to a copy in writing. He glances at it for a 
fraction of a second only, just long enough to get the 
suggestion lines. He pays little if any heed to the direc- 
tion or spatial relations of these hnes ; indeed, it is prob- 
able he is not aware that any definite and invariable 
relations of this sort exist. 

^ "Studies in Education," Vol. I, pp. 283-294; Vol. II, pp. 75-77, 
163-179. 

2 " The ABC of Drawing," Rapt. Educ. Dept. Gt. Brit., 1897, pp. 

115-156- 

3 " Studies of Childhood," Chap. X. 

* "A Study of Children's Drawings," Vol. IV, pp. 79-110. 

* " Mental Development, Methods and Processes," Chap. V. 

* Univ. of Cal. Studies (edited by Brown), 1897. 
^ Fed. Sem., Vol. IX, pp. 296-323. 

* See an article by O'Shea, N. E. A., 1894, pp. 1015-1023; and also 
Chamberlain, " The Child: a Study in the Evolution of Man," Chap. VI. 



112 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

This last point should be worked out in a Uttle greater 
detail. I write the letter m, for instance, upon a black- 
board and ask a child who has had no experience to 
reproduce it. In response his pencil runs here and 
there over the paper before him. His attention is appar- 
ently not concerned at all with the copy, but only with 
the lines which he is making. It is evident from his 
expression that making hnes affords him pleasure; but 
marks of any sort will please him. He seems to be quite 
indifferent to the Hkeness which exists between his repro- 
duction and the copy ; the latter really gets no hearing at 
all. It would, I think, be within reason to say that the 
young child is not copy- minded to any extent ; he is only 
muscular-minded. Again, and without giving him any 
instruction in the meantime, I ask him some time later, 
say at five years, to reproduce this same copy. His first 
stroke now resembles the first part of the letter, but the 
rest is chaotic. He pays slight attention to the copy, 
and none whatever after the first stroke is made. The 
copy exercises very little control as yet over the motor 
processes. It is perhaps worth remarking that I have 
often observed a tendency in children in the later stages 
of this random period to represent in a crude fashion 
forms, as a flag, for example, made familiar to them from 
experiences in their play Ufe. I ask a four-year-old to 
copy a letter from the board, and he will show me a pic- 
ture that he calls a flag, and that has a shght resemblance 



THE TEACHING OF SCHOOL-ROOM ARTS II3 

thereto, perhaps. Evidently letter-form and flag-form 
are about the same thing to the novice. Different forms 
do not yet have distinct individuality, so to say. 

It is important to note here, however, that when at this 
age V. or H. saw me make a letter he would make some- 
thing of the same general character. They would re- 
produce the movement of my hand in a general way. 

Their attention was always centered on what I did, not 
on what I made. If they do not look at me while I am 
making it, they seem to get no sort of idea of the elements 
of the copies. They can perceive and appreciate the ele- 
ments in a more or less complex movement, but not so 
with a form the making of which they do not observe. 
They have not had any significant experience with this 
sort of thing in its elements; it has not entered vitally 
into their daily Uves. They have not had occasion to 
become vitally acquainted with it or anything hke it, in 
its elements. 

Now, in learning to make the letter m (which is typical 
of all writing and drawing) it has been said that the first 
kind of data which is of service to the learner is gained 
from observing the thing being done; and he tends to 
imitate the movement when next his eye follows the lines 
as they are made. In this way he becomes conscious 
in some measure of the elements of the complex form. 
Without such optical tracing, which brings the different 
parts of the form on to the retina in orderly succession, the 



114 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

letter must remain simply a confused, indefinite, obscure 
whole. Of course, the motor series estabhshed in follow- 
ing the movements of the hand and tracing the Hnes as they 
are made, together with at least partial reinstatement 
through imitation of the hand movements as they have 
been observed,^ all contribute to depne the original con- 
fused whole, to bring its elements to the front, and in the 
way in which they are related in the original. Then 
there are the retinal data, the image of the form. Finally 
there are the kinsesthetic data, derived from muscular 
coordinations involved in actually tracing the letter. 
Thus we have four sorts of data concerning the individuality 
of this special thing, and these must get related to one 
another in such a way that the appropriate motor pro- 
cesses will be uniformly set off when the visual image is 
reinstated. When it is recalled that at the outset the 
apprehension of form of this character is extremely in- 
definite, and the muscles have the right of way, it can be 
appreciated that there must occur quite a struggle before 
the motor processes will become wholly subjugated and 
obedient to a clear, well-defined image. 

But the natural history of this process is not essentially 
different from other adaptive and imitative processes we 

* Baldwin and other writers take no account of what I have called 
the imitation data in the process of learning these movements, but they 
certainly are important. They may be said, perhaps, to constitute a 
sort of apperceptive basis for the interpretation of this new complex. 



THE TEACHING OF SCHOOL- ROOM ARTS II5 

have studied. The learner must pass along the route Thcprin- 
which he pursued in learning to reproduce the language, writing is 

r • 1-111 1 • . *''® ^^™® *^ 

for instance, which he heard spoken about him in his in any 

adaptive 

early years. There must be excess action, some of which activity, 
will hit the mark, and the successful attempts will be 
noted, for they will give pleasure. V. at four years is 
dehghted when he makes anything resembUng a copy 
which is set him. Whenever children discover any Hke- 
ness between their scribbHngs and the things about them 
they run in high glee to communicate the fact to the parent 
or teacher, indicating that the "hits" make a deep im- 
pression, and the learner is encouraged to "try, try again," 
with the result that the right movements become ever more 
deeply estabhshed, and the irrelevant actions grow less 
and less conspicuous from disuse. Then the learner is 
constantly brought into relation with the forms he is try- 
ing to reproduce in ways which help him in his learning. 
He sees his sister making them, or his teacher takes his 
hand and helps him to execute them, and these experiences 
assist in estabUshing a visual-motor process corresponding 
to the given letter. And the natural history of learning 
any form is the same in principle. 

It may be well to call attention to the fact that in his 
spontaneous activities the child is gaining experiences 
which aid him in the apprehension and reproduction of 
graphic forms such as we find in drawing and writing. 
For example, he traces Unes with his finger on the window- 



Il6 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

pane in cold weather. He traces figures with his fingers 
in the sand-pile. His mother in showing him pictures aids 
him in noting elements by taking his finger and tracing 
them out. In these and in other ways he gets images of 
forms and the movements required to create them coupled 
together. By the time he has reached the age of five 
graphic form has become in a measure a part of his en- 
vironment, and he has significant experiences with it, and 
this gets him into the way of attending to it, and striving 
of his own accord to reproduce it. He sees only general 
tendencies, which is shown readily enough when at six 
or so he tries to reproduce the copies in his copy book. 
He apprehends the main characteristics of the forms, but 
such matters as precise spatial relations, the degree of 
curvature of Unes, relative heights, terminations, and the 
like he misses very largely. 

It is probable that the learner early settles into certain 
modes of reproducing his copies which, while quite imper- 
fect, yet satisfy him. They appear like the copies to his 
eyes. It is a simple enough fact that each child has his 
own peculiar handwriting, and I have seen half a dozen 
children from eight to ten years of age while looking at 
the same copy reproduce it each in his own way, and 
feeUng he had hit the mark. The copy simply reinstated 
the motor habits associated therewith ; and each individual 
saw largely in terms of what he had done. Form is mainly 
a motor thing, so to speak; the retina alone gives but 



THE TEACHING OF SCHOOL- ROOM ARTS II7 

signs which must be filled out from motor experience. 
What the child has not traced he does not see in any detail ; 
and what he has traced he sees about as he has executed 
it. We see forms very largely through our motor habits, 
that is to say, though I am aware this will sound queer to 
many. 
The principle here in question holds for other senses Theprin- 

ciple seen 

and processes as well as for vision and form. To illus- in a child's 

correcting 

trate, H. in her fourth year had formed the habit of saying wrong habits, 
"effilant" for "elephant." I would pronounce the 
word properly to her, but she would come back with 
the incorrect form, although she imagined she was right 
every time. Instances hke this will be recalled by any one 
famiUar with children. An auditory stimulus will always 
tend to reproduce itself in the accustomed fashion; and 
once it is reproduced it is difficult to keep it before the 
attention in order to analyze it into its elements. The 
function of attention in its lower forms is to establish 
connections between a stimulus and its appropriate reac- 
tion, and the former is of account only for the latter. Often 
the general characteristics of a situation will be enough 
to set off a certain response which works well enough, 
and so we do not bother about details. What H. hears in 
"elephant" is a few prominent sounds, and she has not 
listened critically to see just in what sequence they occur. 
The auditory stimulus is received as a unit and the motor 
process is set off as a unit, so that elements get neglected. 



Il8 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

And the habit cannot be corrected until the attention 
is turned toward the elements, and the onrush of the 
stimulus (the sound of the word) into the usual vocal 
execution is checked. In getting H. to pronounce "ele- 
phant" correctly, I led her first to break up in her atten- 
tion the auditory whole into its prominent elements by 
sounding each part separately for her and comparing it 
with words with which she was famihar and was able to 
pronounce correctly, she meanwhile copying me. In 
this way the attention singled out the main parts and these 
were already connected with appropriate motor processes, 
as in el-e-vator and el-e-ment, so that as soon as I got the 
first two syllables estabhshed in their right relation in 
her attention, then I could easily carry them over to the 
last part of the word, pliant. By repetition she suc- 
ceeded in estabhshing a new habit, though the old 
one hung on for some time; and it was only by my 
frequently drawing her attention to the correct form 
in the way I have indicated that she finally mastered 
the word. 

One who has taught children the art of writing realizes 
that the process of making their imperfect reproductions 
more like their copies consists principally in directing 
their attention upon detailed characteristics which they 
have overlooked altogether; and this is done not merely 
by commanding them to look closely, but more espe- 
cially by giving them actual motor experience which 



THE TEACHING OF SCHOOL- ROOM ARTS II9 

will define what the eye reports only in a very general 
way. The wise teacher will trace the copy for the novice 
so that he can attend to the movement of her hand. 
Then she will, if necessary, actually take his hand and give 
him the feeling of how the thing is done. She will have 
him work rapidly, so that the elementary motor processes 
may be organized into one whole. Then if she can get 
the series repeated frequently enough, she will succeed 
in her task of so connecting images and their motor execu- 
tion that whenever the former are reinstated they will be 
automatically reproduced. She will not weary the pupil 
by talking to him about "noticing carefully," "paying at- 
tention," and so on, if he is just beginning, for he really 
has little in his experience which will enable him to attend 
effectively, and such experience as he has may lead him 
astray. Do everything you can to aid the learner in gain- 
ing just the right motor experience ; this is the whole of 
the law and the gospel.^ 

TOPICS FOR INVESTIGATION AND DISCUSSION 

I. During your school course did you change from slant 
to vertical writing ? Do you know of any one who has had this 

' I have, of course, considered only one phase of imitative activity. 
For a treatment of the subject in a more general way, as it is related to 
education, see Deahl, " Imitation in Education," Columbia Univ. Cont. 
to Phil, and Education, 1900; and Harris, Add. and Proc. N. E. A., 
1894, pp. 637-641. 



I20 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

experience? How long did it take to complete the change? 
Why could not the change be made instantly ? , 

2. Is the extremely illegible penmanship of a five-year-old 
due to lack of muscular power, or to some other cause ? 

3. Can an individual, a novice, say, see forms much more 
accurately than he can reproduce them? Or is imperfect 
drawing due mainly to inadequate and imperfect seeing ? 

4. If possible make a test with a young child who has had 
no experience in writing by placing a copy on his paper or on 
the blackboard, and noting how fully he perceives all the form 
characteristics of the copy. Note whether he really gives 
attention to the forms as such, and see if you can explain what 
you observe. 

5. If you are not an artist, could you reproduce a drawing 
better if you observed it being made than if it were set before 
you completed ? What is the principle involved ? 

6. Have you observed that pupils sometimes reach a point 
beyond which they do not progress in making their writing like 
the copy, for they feel that they reproduce the model quite 
accurately? Explain this phenomenon. 

7. Comment upon the following: A pupil in the primary 
grade is not writing well. The teacher puts a copy on the 
board, and asks him to reproduce it. Upon his failure to do 
so satisfactorily she upbraids him, says he is careless, and she 
commands him to give better attention. As a punishment 
she keeps him after school, and requires him to practice his 
writing by looking at the copy and trying to imitate it. 

8. Say whether you can see more of any novel activity than 
you are able to reproduce. Give specific instances illustrating 
the principle. 

9. What is the most efficient method of getting pupils to 



THE TEACHING OF SCHOOL- ROOM ARTS 121 

see just what you wish them to in physical exercises, and to 
hear as you wish them to hear in articulation ? 

ID. Is it best to require pupils to observe a copy as they 
try to reproduce it, or to study it first, and then reproduce from 
memory? Should a pupil get into the habit of reproducing 
rapidly or slowly? 



CHAPTER IX 

DEVELOPMENT OF COORDINATED ACTIVITIES 

Theinco- DouBTLESS every one realizes that when the child sets 

ordinated 

condition foot on thcsc shores he is equipped with an elaborate outfit 

of the infant. 

of instruments for the performance of dehcate tasks, but 
he seems not to have learned how to use them to advantage. 
"He has two eyes for to see with," as the nursery rhyme 
runs, but he cannot make them pull together. Each 
pursues its own course quite regardless of its mate. "He 
has two hands for to work with," but at the outset he 
seems little the better for his possession. So he appears 
among us provided with an apparatus for standing erect 
and looking nature in the face, but yet he is compelled to 
lie flat on his back for many weeks ; and it is many months 
before he comes into his human birthright in respect 
of bipedal locomotion. With all his equipment he is 
just a helpless creature, mewling in his nurse's arms. 

In one way he is far lower in his estate at birth than the 
colt or calf or kitten or even the chick, for they can handle 
themselves fairly well from the beginning. The puppy 
or lamb no more than touch the earth before they try 
their legs, and they find them not wholly useless. In a 



DEVELOPMENT OF COORDINATED ACTIVITIES 1 23 

week or so they are running races with their elders, and 
practicing all the arts of their kind with considerable 
skill. But how slowly in comparison the child becomes 
master of his bodily members ! By the end of his first year 
we can see he has made progress, but after all he has not 
yet gone far along the route toward well-controlled, 
efficient adulthood. Even after three or four or five 
years have passed he is still a novice in the employment 
of a considerable part of his equipment. We forbid him 
the use of all sharp implements because he cannot co- 
ordinate his muscles so as to manipulate them with safety, 
though he may wish earnestly so to do. We will not let 
him handle our fragile china, or costly books, or valu- 
able objects of any sort for the reason, again, that he has 
not acquired such precise control of his appendages, so to 
speak, that he can do exactly what he needs to with them 
in dealing with many of the objects in his environment. 

Common-sense philosophers (by whom I mean the 
ordinary persons of good general sense but without 
special knowledge or training) maintain that the reason 
of the infant's incapacity in the performance of compli- 
cated tasks is because he is not strong enough in a physical 
sense; his muscles are not sufficiently developed. Or 
perhaps he has not learned how to "use his will." These 
people overlook the fact that the child can support his 
weight, hanging by his arms, for some seconds at the 
moment of birth ; and he has a good bit of muscle in his 



124 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

legs too, as one can ascertain by attempting to straighten 
them out from the constrained position in which they are 
so generally kept during the first days of post-natal Ufe. 
He has more gross muscle, so far as that goes, than he 
would require to support his weight, but he has not 
learned the art of using it in maintaining himself in equi- 
librium in an erect position. It is a question after all of 
method oj use not of crude strength. Again, these philos- 
ophers overlook in their naive way the perplexing prob- 
lem of why the child should have to learn to use his will, 
and how the learning proceeds. Is it a product of experi- 
ence, of education? Or is it that the infant possesses 
volition, but it is not yet correlated with the environing 
world ? These questions common-sense philosophy passes 
over in silence. 

There are, of course, a few coordinated movements of 
which the infant is master from the beginning. He is, 
for instance, an adept in the execution of certain move- 
ments required to secure his food. Put your finger in 
the mouth of an infant, and note how complex and per- 
fectly definite are the coordinations of tongue, hps, and 
jaw involved in sucking. Again, the child at birth has a 
measure of control over his vocal apparatus, enough at 
any rate so that he can produce simple vowel sounds. He 
has, too, become possessed in some way of the ability to 
manage his arms to the extent that he can extend and 
contract them; and he can grasp an object placed under 



DEVELOPMENT OF COORDINATED ACTIVITIES 12$ 

his fingers and convey it with considerable accuracy to 
the centre of being at this time, the mouth. Mr. Burk 
thinks this performance is at first a mere accident, while 
Preyer, Miss Shinn, and others regard it as a quite definitely inherited 

. ... coordinations. 

fixed coordmation. Given a stimulus in the palm of the 
hand and the fingers will generally close reflexly in the 
grasping movement. All observers have noted this fact ; 
and judging from what I have myself seen, the fist will, 
without fail, travel mouthwards. I should say that the 
activities of the arms are in considerable part spasmodic 
at first, though they tend, in the case of palm stimulation, 
in the direction of the desired port, and after more or less 
of awkward fumbling the fist usually gets into the mouth. 
When the hand comes in contact with the skin anywhere 
in the neighborhood of the mouth, reflex movements are 
set agoing all over this region, and these have for their 
aim to bring the thing into the mouth. With these 
several factors collaborating to attain the same end, success 
is finally achieved. 

So there are a few other relatively simple coordinations 
of which the infant is capable at the start, but the inven- 
tory of the entire list is easily made. Practically the 
whole business of becoming coordinated in adjustment 
to a complex environment lies before the individual. In 
the beginning most of his energy seems to be expended 
in keeping the muscles of his arms and hands and legs 
constrained, and in moving them back and forth in the 



126 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

same plane. The fingers are clenched most of the time, 
even during sleep. Mr. Trettien's correspondents ^ ap- 
pear to have all observed the tension of arm and fingers 
in the infant, in proof of which note what they say : — 

M. (male), 3 wks. His fingers were clenched both when awake 
and asleep. 

M., 2 wks. When awake his fingers were bent, but when asleep 
his fingers were clenched. 

M., 5 mos. The fingers were bent and in constant motion when 
awake and asleep. 

F. (female), 2z mos. Kept her hands closed when awake and 
open when asleep. 

M., 2 wks. The fingers were clenched when awake, but clenched 
tighter when asleep. 

M., 4 wks. During the early weeks of life the fingers are clenched 
when awake and bent when asleep. 

M., 4 wks. The fingers are clenched so tightly that the nurse 
must pry them open in order to wash the palm. 

F., 4 wks. She would always keep her elbow bent and would 
seldom attempt to hold the arm straight. 

M., 2 wks. The wrists are but slightly bent ; the elbow is con- 
siderably bent. 

M., 3 mos. The wrists and elbows are bent. 

These testimonies corroborate statements made by Sigis- 
mund,^ Preyer,' Miss Shinn,^ Mrs. Moore,^ Mrs. Hall,* 

* See his " Creeping and Walking," Am. Journ. of Psych., Vol. XII, 
October, 1900. Also Reprint, p. 16. 

* " Kind und Welt, Die fiinf ersten Perioden des Kindesalters." 

' Op. cH., Part I, " The Senses and Will," pp. 187-282 (New York, 
1888). * Op. cit. » Op. cit. 

« " First Five Hundred Days of a Child's Life," Child Study Monthly, 
Vol. II, pp. 330 et seq., 394 et seq., 458 et seq., 522 et seq., 586 et seq., 
and 650 et seq. 



DEVELOPMENT OF COORDINATED ACTIVITIES 1 27 

and other students of childhood. There is little ampli- central or 

. fundamental 

tude, httle variety, and but slight complexity in these movements 

predominate 

first movements. They are mainly fundamental, in ^^ the be- 
ginning. 

the sense that the biceps, for example, in the manual 
series, are vigorously energized, but the very tips of the 
fingers cannot be employed with any success in fine co- 
ordinations. The fingers can be manipulated after a 
fashion, but they are "clumsy." Mr. Burk has called 
attention to the manner in which an infant will grasp a 
pencil, for instance, or a saucer. If you observe him 
doing this you will appreciate that his will has not yet 
gained control to any extent of the ends of his fingers, in 
the sense that they can be utihzed in the execution of 
intricate tasks. The infant appears to have about as good 
use of his toes as he does of his fingers, and this is worthy 
of remark since, as Mr. Trettien has pointed out, the skill 
in managing the toes is lost in part as development pro- 
ceeds, while finger-skill constantly increases. Again, 
though the infant can respire perfectly, still he has slight 
management of his hps, tongue, teeth, and palate in the 
modification of the expired air so as to produce conso- 
nantal sounds; and he cannot even control the vocal 
chords so as to produce most of the vowel sounds of which 
he will be capable later. 

Now let us follow the child a little distance, and observe 
how he acquires manual dexterity, which implies the 
ability to manipulate with precision any segment of the 



128 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

manual system in coordination with any other segment, 
or with the arm, or any part of the organism, or any 
external object.^ The first sign of advance is seen in 
what may be regarded as a sort of breaking up of the orig- 
inal biceptual tension. The biceps seem now not to be 
stimulated so vigorously and constantly as formerly. 
Some observers have attempted to be precise in days and 
hours when changes of this sort occur, but this appears 
to be a quite impossible task, since these really have no 
absolute beginning. They are phases of a continuous 
process of evolution, of refinement, of differentiation, of de- 
veloping complexity. They do not present themselves 
suddenly as something quite novel which can be rigidly 
discriminated from what has gone before.^ 

Then progress along any line is probably made with 
unequal rates of speed by different children. In the 
development of arm, hand, and finger skill, H. showed 

' Space will not permit me to go into the neurology of coordination. 
Any reader who is interested in the neurological side should read Flechsig, 
"Gehirn und Seele"; Donaldson, "The Growth of the Brain"; Burk, 
" From Fundamental to Accessory," etc., Fed. Sem., Vol. VI, and Re- 
print; Mercier, "The Nervous System and the Mind," Chaps. III-VI; 
Hofifman, "Psychology and the Common Life," Chaps. I, III; Broad- 
bent, " Hughlings Jackson," Brain, autumn, 1903; Ross, "Diseases of 
the Nervous System." 

^ Of course, this principle in its broadest statement applies to every 
phase of mental development. Nature does not work per saliunt in the 
development of any power. I cannot agree with those observers who 
declare they have noted very marked and sudden transformations at 
different periods in mental development. 



DEVELOPMENT OF COORDINATED ACTIVITIES 1 29 

considerable progress by the seventh week. She was at 
this time operating the whole- arm system during most 
of her waking hours; but the original rigidity was less 
apparent, the fingers were opening and closing constantly, 
and the thumb began to play its part in the game. Until 
about this period, the thumb had not reported for duty; 
it kept itself hidden most of the time in the palm of the 
hand, a phenomenon which Dr. Mumford ^ and others 
have commented upon. Now, M. crept along much 
more slowly than H. When she reached her seventh 
week she had not got a great distance from the starting 
point. S., a boy, appeared to be at least a week or two 
behind his sister H., and V. was later still. Of course, 
lacking the means of exact measurement it is impossible 
to determine rates of progress with absolute precision, 
and no attempt should be made to do so. The accom- 
panying figure (i) illustrates the point here in question. 
Four observers find that their subjects begin various 
familiar activities and abandon them at difi"erent ages; 
but it should be noted that they all take up the activities 
sooner or later, and in about the same sequential order. 

But we must not lose sight of our child developing The wave of 

develop- 

manual dexterity. As he runs on we see him gaining mentis 

toward the 

ever greater flexibility and efficiency of hand and fingers, extremities, 
and greater amplitude in the employment of the arm as a 
whole. There is a gradual decrease in the predominance 

* See Brain, Vol. XX, p. 302. 

K 



I30 



THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 



of the biceps, and increasing action in forearm, wrist, 
and fingers. The wave of development moves constantly 
outward, — toward the extremities. This does not im- 






FIRST EFFORT OR TENDENCY 




<.*"•'" 


















HABIT 

Fl 
SUCC 


COMP 

1ST 

pSFU 


.ETE 
















/ 




JU^ 


^ 


fr^ 


jS^ 




*T7 
4 


EMPT 
















y 




/^/^ 











FIRST EFFORT OR TENDENCY 



Fig. I. — I, Miss Shinn's record; 2, Prof. Preycr's ; 3, Mrs. Hall's; 4, Mrs. 
Beatty's. 

The dotted lines indicate the decline and disappearance of the movement. 

The broken lines show that the record was incomplete. In a few cases, how- 
ever (as "rolling" in Prof. Preyer's record), the movement itself was but 
partly developed by the child. (From Miss Shinn's " The Development 
of a Child," p. 411.) 

ply, of course, that there is not continuous development 
all along the line; it means simply that at the start the 
most accessory members, to use Ross's term, function the 
least effectively, considering what they are designed to 



DEVELOPMENT OF COORDINATED ACTIVITIES I3I 

accomplish, and so development has the most to accomplish 
in the outlying regions. What progress in this respect has 
the child made by the sixth month? Preyer reports that 
his son Axel showed much deftness before his seventh 
month in picking up shreds of paper from the floor; but 
the term "much deftness" is quite indefinite. Bits of 
paper may be taken between the thumb and fingers without 
very precise and varied control of the outermost segments 
of the manual apparatus. As a rule, I think, children 
of this age are grasping at everything they see; they 
have become "Httle grippers" as Sigismund called 
them. They pick up smalhsh objects wherever they 
find them, but their essays really seem very crude and 
ineffectual when measured by the adult standard, which 
is the only just basis of comparison. It does not serve 
our purpose here to compare the child's present skill with 
his condition at the very beginning ; nor should we accept 
the evidence of the mother who marvels that her child 
should be able to seize hold of anything. Her wonder 
and admiration are likely to lead her to believe that he 
executes his tasks with as much delicacy and deftness 
as she does herself. 

The child of six months or a year, or even two or five 
years, is long in gross muscle and short in dehcate coordi- 
nations. He puts more actual force into such a task as 
writing, for example, than an adult does. One may see 
this principle illustrated in the tension of muscles that 



132 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

should remain at rest when the child applies himself to 
delicate tasks. In all his hand activities in the early years 
the characteristic which impresses one most markedly 
is the amount of force which is expended upon them. 
Delicacy of adjustment is quite generally lacking. It 
seems that the novice in order to perform compUcated 
tasks, requiring mainly activities of accessory muscles, 
has to expend a comparatively great amount of energy 
so that it will overflow old channels deeply grooved from 
long use, and some of it will escape into new and as yet 
shallow ones. The caresses of a year-old child, which 
he intends doubtless to be gentle, are often annoying 
because of their vigor. When he is attempting acts that 
should be done tenderly, as touching his father's eyes in 
play, he jabs into them as though he had no control over 
his biceps. Most mothers who have tender babies in a 
house where there are vigorous five-year-old boys have 
occasion to learn that the latter tend always to express 
their kindly feelings most energetically and crudely. 

As the months pass we may note that coordination in- 
creases, and muscularity, so to say, decreases. If you try 
a child of two years at threading a needle with a moderate- 
sized eye, you will notice extreme tension at once in the 
fingers, and soon in the face, and elsewhere in the body, 
and rarely if ever can he succeed in his task. Scissors 
are used very badly at this period, and writing with an 
ordinary pencil causes excessive tensions. In the use of 



DEVELOPMENT OF COORDINATED ACTIVITIES 1 33 

his knife and fork and spoon at table the undue promi- 
nence of the biceps is noticeable. It is not a deficiency 
in brute strength that makes the child incapable; he is 
simply unable to use properly what he possesses in the 
management of a complex mechanism. His force is 
not rightly distributed and correlated throughout the 
parts of the whole apparatus employed. The part near- 
est the power house gets too much force, and this throws 
the rest of the machinery out of gear, considering the 
special work to be done. 
A child of three or four or five years endeavoring to use Force rather 

than deli- 

tools illustrates the principle of development under con- cateor 

precise 

sideration. S. at three can put a good deal of force into his manipu- 
lation, 
experiments with a hammer, but he cannot hit a nail on 

the head once in ten trials. He must be watched by his 

elders when he is pounding to see that he does not 

bruise his fingers. V. at five has much greater precision, 

though compared with H. at eight he is still crude and 

clumsy; so much so, indeed, that the older one often 

makes merry at his expense, and he in turn rallies his 

younger brother. I sometimes let S. wind my watch, 

and he puts a great deal more force into the business than 

is required.* When S. tries to imitate H. in her painting 

lessons he apparently thinks the thing to do is to put all 

the muscle he can into the manipulation of the brush; he 

* See, in this connection, Hancock, "A Preliminary Study of Motor 
Ability," Fed. Sent., Vol. Ill, pp. 9-29. 



134 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

is a dauber, not an artist yet. H. shows considerable 
delicacy in her use of the brush, but still her work very 
patently lacks the fine touch which is made possible 
through the more perfect coordinations of her teacher. 
When H. attempts to do very fine work one result is seen 
in marked tension of fingers, and constraint of muscles 
in the face and the whole body. H.'s teacher, though, 
handles the brush for long periods every day with great 
ease and apparently with Httle fatigue. 

Bryan's studies upon the development of precision * 
reveal the principle, which doubtless most of us have 
appreciated in a way, that throughout the maturing pro- 
cess there is continual improvement, except for an ap- 
parent temporary arrest at puberty, in the ability to 
control the motor mechanism, in its accessory as well as 
fundamental functions, so that tasks requiring exact con- 
trol and precision can be performed more and more satis- 
factorily as the years go on. Dr. Gilbert has reached some 
suggestive results in his experiments upon the accuracy 
of kinaesthetic sensations with increasing age, which show 
the general principle in operation.^ 
The develop- What has been said regarding the development of co- 

ment of pedal ..... ... ,...., , 

dexterity. ordination in the upper hmbs apphes in principle to the 
development of the lower limbs. At the start the legs 

' See his "On the Development of Voluntary Motor Ability," pp- 
53-62. 

^ See Burk, op. cit., Reprint, p. 57. 



DEVELOPMENT OF COORDINATED ACTIVITIES I35 

are kept in a tense position with the soleus muscles gen- 
erally energized. The movements are automatic, and in 
a plane up and down, as Perez ^ and others have ob- 
served; but development progresses outward here as it 
does in the arm and hand. The over-action of funda- 
mental muscles in the early weeks produces constraint, 
and this seems to be characteristic of the infant among 
primitive men as among us. One may see civihzed 
mothers who are troubled by the cramped position of the 
limbs of their children, and they endeavor forcibly to 
stretch them. Primitive mothers try the same thing. 
"Certain Armenian people, after the fifteenth day of an 
infant's birth, thoroughly stretch the shoulders daily, pull 
out the legs and arms, press each muscle and joint, raise 
the head and stretch the neck to give it its proper length, 
or the child is suspended by its feet and allowed to swing 
back and forth several times like a pendulum, then it is 
turned about end for end and the process repeated. The 
Russians press every muscle and member of the body at 
birth. . . . Even the Germans had an early custom 
which is practiced in some sections of the country to-day, 
where the pressing and stretching process was employed 
to beautify the body." ^ 

I have been much interested in observing children in 

1 "The First Three Years of Childhood," translated by Christy, 1885, 
p. 14. See also Trettien, op. cit. 
^ Trettien, op. cit., p. 20. 



136 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

their first essays at walking. They use their legs as if 
they were jointless ; they might almost as well be wooden. 
There is Uttle if any flexion or coordination of the different 
sections with one another. Rigidity is the word that de- 
scribes these early movements. It appears impossible for 
the child to energize both fundamental and accessory 
muscles in sequence as they are required in order to exe- 
cute the complex act of walking in the most economical 
and effective manner. This phenomenon is seen again 
when the kicking act is undertaken. At first the toe is the 
end of a pole ; the limb is swung as an unsegmented whole, 
and in this way the toe is brought in contact with the 
object. But the will does not concentrate on the toe, 
and make it the leading point for the expression of energy, 
all other parts of the mechanism serving only to advance 
the projecting point. One might think of the will as not 
having progressed much beyond the thigh in the begin- 
ning of the act of kicking, and the business of development 
is to carry the will out to the extremities, so that they 
can be manipulated in accord with the central segments 
in the execution of any act. S. at fifteen months in try- 
ing to imitate the climbing movements of the older chil- 
dren did not seem to energize the foot at all to help him- 
self up as the child of four does. He pressed his knees 
against the post, and the foot was not brought into requi- 
sition, v., though, at three and one-half, makes the 
foot the objective point of his attention ; it is turned in 



DEVELOPMENT OF COORDINATED ACTIVITIES I37 

against the tree, and he employs it principally in raising 

himself. 

If now we trace the development of coordination in The develop- 
ment of co- 
speech, we shall find the same general plan pursued. The ordination in 

speech, 
infant's first speech, or wail perhaps, contains but a note 

or two, as & or possibly dil, with which every one must 
be familiar. These notes can be produced with compar- 
atively sHght coordination of the vocal apparatus. The 
cords must be tightened up a bit and the expired air 
directed upon them; but the infant cannot modify the 
current of sound thus produced, nor can he even modify 
the pitch or quaHty of the current itself. His repertoire 
is Hmited to the simple vowel range. But by the time he 
has attained his fifth month, to be safe, he has made 
some progress toward extending his range of vowel pro- 
duction. There is beginning to appear also certain 
consonantal sounds, those made by the hps acting on 
the current of sound. Most observers have found that 
the consonants denoted by m, p, b, and d are the earliest 
to be executed, and my own observations indorse this; 
though in the very beginning even these consonants are 
not produced in a clear-cut, distinct way. 

Then when the child begins to imitate the language 
he hears about him he reproduces the simplest sounds 
first, those easiest made, and, speaking generally, he 
comes last of all to those combinations that demand the 
most difficult coordinations. A long combination requir- 



138 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

ing for its execution the skillful manipulation of the vocal 
apparatus will either be left until very late, or it will be 
mutilated, often beyond recognition. The simplest ele- 
ment in it will be picked out and reproduced; or easy 
combinations will be substituted for the difficult ones. 
Thus, speaking in view of my own observations, what 
will be reproduced as hd; here, as he; nail, as nd; this, 
as dit; there, as dd; that, as ddt; and so on. For where 
is that? the child says jd ddt? for noise, he says noi; 
for Harriet, he says Hdwi. The young child does not 
say Hdwi, but Hdwi; and any one by testing it may see 
that the combination of a after h and before w is more 
difficult than the a in the same position. This is the 
type of very much that is found in children's use of words. 
The principle is seen again in the pronunciation of a word 
like some. The child makes it shUm. The motor pro- 
cess required to produce sh before u is really fundamental 
as compared with that required to reproduce ^ in some. 
So again horse becomes horshie, apple becomes appU, 
get becomes geh, farther becomes }ddy, basket becomes 
baky, university becomes uvUty, and so on ad libitum. 

In the beginning the child universally, I think, omits Ws 
on the end of words, as when ball is made bdbd, tell 
becomes teh, jail, jd, and the like. Again, the sound 
denoted by r is very frequently omitted, as when broken 
becomes boken, rock becomes ok, jor becomes jah, etc. 
Th is quite universally omitted from words like that and 



DEVELOPMENT OF COORDINATED ACTIVITIES 1 39 

this. Ng is always omitted. When the following com- 
binations are followed by other sounds, they are almost 
universally omitted or something put in their place, — sf, 
ck, nd, rd, sk, ok, ru, ough, }e, }t, jr, th, ve, nk, ght, fl, and 
others of this character. Again, certain sounds are omitted 
when they occur in combinations at the beginning or the 
end of a word which makes their production difficult. 
Tracy has summarized the results of many observations, 
and his tables derived from an examination of seven 
hundred instances of mispronunciations show the general 
principle at work.^ 

The principle of development here in question is further The principle 
illustrated when the child has learned the use of some words the child's 

use of sen- 

and has begun to construct sentences. If several words tences. 
apply to different objects that have some common resem- 
blance, he will choose the easiest word for them all.^ For 
instance, he says "suppy'' for breakfast, dinner, and 
supper. Again, he will omit words that will make his 
coordinations more intricate. ^' Mamma, jd go?^' means 
"Mamma, where are you going?" and these instances 
are typical of much of the child's hnguistic activity during 
the first three or four years. Of course, children dififer 

^ See his "Psychology of Childhood," pp. 148-157. 

2 It is understood, of course, that I am not here attempting to discuss 
the psychology of language. This will require a volume in itself. I 
have already published one chapter in that volume, — "The Parts of 
Speech in Early Linguistic Activity"; Proceedings of the Wisconsin 
Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1905, and separate monograph. 



140 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

greatly in the rapidity with which these coordinations are 
attained, but they must all pass along the same route, 
though at different rates of speed. S. was as far along 
in the mastery of language difficulties at twenty-one 
months as V. or M. were at three and one-half years, but 
he seemed not to skip any of the stages; he simply ran 
the race faster. 

By way of summary of the points relating to the devel- 
opment of coordination in respect of speech, I may add 
a diagram showing the results of Preyer's observations 
upon his son. It shows the line of progress not only in 
the production of sounds, but also in the use of the sentence, 
and in the hearing and understanding of words ; and while 
we are here concerned primarily with the development 
of motor coordination, still there will be no harm in seeing 
the general principle observed in other phases of devel- 
opment. The movement along every line is toward 
greater and greater power of coordination. Preyer's 
technical terms, many of which are derived from pathol- 
ogy, all denote degrees of incapacity in linguistic execu- 
tion, and reception and understanding. For instance, 
after the period of reflex and automatic sounds, and mere 
babbling, when the child really attempts to reproduce the 
words he hears, he enters the stage of dyslalia, when he 
cannot make all the sounds employed in the language used 
about him. Then as he moves on he passes through the 
stage of paralalia, where speech is still difficult, but the 



DEVELOPMENT OF COORDINATED ACTIVITIES 141 



defects so prominent in the former stage are being over- 
come. When he attains his third year he has mastered 
most of the elementary sounds, and can use them in com- 
bination, but not readily or very easily. He suffers from 
bradylalia or slow speech, due to his difficulty in articula- 
tion, but he is gaining ground. In time he gains enough 



FIRST THREE YEARS Or LEARNING TO SPEAK. CASE OF AXEL PREYER. 

ECHOLALIA LOGORRHOEA 



JRA-LA-LA. 
PERIOD 




DYSPHASIA 

OF THE FEEBLC-UINOeO 

OEAf 



7* 

AUDITORY POWER 



Fig. 2. 
(Lukens, Pedagogical Seminary, Vol. Ill, 1894-1896, p. 426.) 

power of speech so that he gabbles continually, probably 
for the purpose of making his possession absolutely 
secure. Gradually the stage of logorrhcea is passed 
through, and the child has mastered speech and uses it 
as his social environment requires. 

The stages of progress in this series are constantly from 
the simple and incoordinated to the complex and coor- 



142 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

dinated. So if we should trace out the series in the use 
of the sentence, or in hearing words, we should find the 
same plan followed — the gradual acquisition of the power 
of coordination so that more and more complex activities 
may be performed. 
The order of While the evolution of coordination proceeds from the 

losing co- 
ordinations in simple and fundamental to the complex and accessory, 
degeneration. 

in dissolution just the reverse course is pursued. Dis- 
turbances of coordination are first manifested in the finest 
and most complex movements. Mcrcier ^ has pointed 
out that the most complex and elaborate processes fail 
first and the most fundamental remain to the last. Wil- 
son has called attention ^ to this in discussing the phenom- 
ena occurring in alcoholic dissolution. Degeneration 
begins with the highest, most coordinated movements of 
expression, — with purposive movements, — and travels 
downward to those which are automatic. The voice 
becomes shaky, and control over the tongue and hps is 
gradually lost. The drunkard returns over the route he 
went up in the acquisition of speech, passing through in 
reverse order the stages of incoordination which he out- 
grew in childhood. "If the tremors descend to the 
limbs, they first invade the fingers (not the thumbs), 
spreading abroad till the whole hand shakes, and creeping 
up the arms. The lower limbs grow tremulous last of 



• "Sanity and Insanity," pp. 308-317. 

* "Drunkenness," p. 40. 



DEVELOPMENT OF COORDINATED ACTIVITIES 1 43 

all, their movements being largely automatic." Mercier 
thus describes ^ the process of general undoing under the 
influence of alcohol. Ribot, too, has emphasized ^ this 
law of decay in will, whatever may be the cause, from the 
highest and most complex to the lowest and simplest; 
from the unstable and most organized to the stable and 
least organized. Degeneration pursues a course directly 
the reverse of development; it is a continuous retro- 
gression from the highly to the relatively simple coordi- 
nated. 

In senescent dissolution the finer and more complex 
activities are the earliest to become affected. The first 
evidence of a motor character of the oncoming of senes- 
cence is seen in a lack of precise control of the fingers. 
The old man grows unsteady in his writing. Then his 
articulation becomes less distinct. And as age proceeds 
the coordination of all the accessory members is gradu- 
ally lost. But the vital functions may keep on unaffected. 
When the old man is wholly unable to care for himself he 
may still eat vigorously and enjoy his food. He has 
indeed returned to his second childhood. Again, in death 
from lack of nutrition, of a person of any age, dissolution 
proceeds from the extremities inward. One can observe 
cases of this sort where he can see a reversal step by step 

* "Sanity and Insanity," p. 317. 

^ "The Psychology of the Emotions," p. 425. See also his "Diseases 
of the Will," pp. 112 et seq. 



144 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

of the developmental processes, until the individual is 
brought back to the starting point, where all is gone but 
certain reflexes, as v^rhen an object is put into the palm of 
the hand it will be seized reflexly and carried to the mouth, 
— just such a phenomenon as may be seen in the newborn 
child. 

TOPICS FOR INVESTIGATION AND DISCUSSION 

1. There is a popular saying that an infant is helpless 
because it lacks strength. If you have an opportunity, make 
a test upon a young child by straightening out its arms and 
legs, when they are contracted, and note whether there seems 
to be muscular weakness. 

2. Just what is the distinction between muscular power 
and motor coordination ? Illustrate the distinction with refer- 
ence to the arm, hand, and fingers, for instance. 

3. Do the children whose spontaneous activities you have 
an opportunity to observe talk louder as a general thing than 
their parents ? What is the explanation of this ? 

4. Take the hand of a child just learning to write, and 
guide it in making letters or words. What most impresses 
you in this experience? What principle of development is 
involved ? 

5. What is the effect upon a child's motor expressions of 
requiring him to perform any task demanding intricate and 
precise coordination? Observe his facial and general bodily 
attitudes and movements when he is making the attempt, and 
note just what occurs. 

6. You can easily repeat some of the experiments on motor 
coordination made by Mr. Hancock (described in the Peda- 



DEVELOPMENT OF COORDINATED ACTIVITIES 1 45 

gogical Seminary, Vol. Ill, pp. 9-29). Compare your results 
with his, and say whether they all illustrate the same principle 
of development. 

7. Why is a babe so "clumsy " in its first essays at walking ? 
What is the meaning of "clumsiness" in terms of motor co- 
ordination ? 

8. Are bright children in school more or less "clumsy" 
than backward ones? Can the bright pupils do better work 
in writing, drawing, and the like? Can they wrestle better? 
run faster ? jump higher ? shout louder ? 

9. Compare bright and backward pupils with respect to 
articulation, say in reading. Can you detect a difference ? If 
so, in whose favor? What principle of development is in- 
volved ? 

10. Observe children, from six years onward as far as you 
can, in their spontaneous motor activities. Do the younger 
children generally choose occupations requiring precision and 
elaborate coordination of the accessory muscles, or those in- 
volving mainly the fundamental muscles in a comparatively 
incoordinated and coarse way ? Does a change occur as devel- 
opment proceeds ? Illustrate with specific instances. 



CHAPTER X 

FROM FUNDAMENTAL TO ACCESSORY IN EDUCATION 

Most of us can doubtless remember the time when the 
kindergarten quite generally required its little pupils to 
sew with fine needles which they were obHged to thread 
for themselves. Its gifts were tiny, and demanded 
considerable precision of control from infant fingers; 
and the same was true of the weaving and similar activi- 
ties. The primary school, too, seemed to proceed on the 
principle that the smaller the children the finer should be 
their writing, drawing, and the hke. The copy books 
of a decade ago were ruled so that the beginner had to 
work in very restricted spaces. Every stroke was made 
in the effort to keep within narrow boundaries on all 
sides. It was argued that in this way alone could a pupil 
become possessed of graceful, artistic chirography. In 
those days penmanship was a fine art in more senses than 
one. In drawing, too, it was the fashion to insist at the 
outset upon mechanical precision. Little allowance was 
made for an incoordinated motor system; coarse work 
was regarded as the mark of a lethargic or perverse will. 
Freedom was not to be tolerated in the novice, for it would 
lead to careless, slovenly habits. In reading, again, the 

146 



FROM FUNDAMENTAL TO ACCESSORY IN EDUCATION 1 47 

orthodox teacher laid great stress upon distinct articula- 
tion and "proper" modulation at the outset. 

In the words of Dr. Ross, "Until a few years ago the 
natural order of development was reversed in the education 
of youth, and especially in female education, so far as 
this could be accomplished by human contrivance and 
ingenuity. . . . No sooner had what is technically called 
education begun than the professional trainer began to 
exercise the small muscles of vocalization and articulation, 
so as to acquire the art of reading; the small muscles of 
the hand, so as to acquire the art of writing; and, in the 
case of young ladies, the still more comphcated movements 
necessary in running over the keyboard of the piano; 
while httle attention was paid to the development of the 
larger muscles of the trunk and lower extremities, upon 
the full development of which the future comfort of the 
individual depends." ^ But one cannot find quite so 
much of that sort of thing to-day, though it has not wholly 
disappeared by any means, either from the school or 
from the home. One who will visit some of the nurs- 
eries in his community will in all Ukehhood discover that 
awkward, incoordinated, undeveloped hands are still 
employed in such enterprises as fine sewing, working 
with diminutive toys and tools, stringing beads with 
small eyelets, and so on. 

» Cf. Oppenheim, " The Development of the Child," Chap. V. Also 
Burk, op. cit., pp. 58-69, 



148 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

The natural The Order of development which has been pointed out 

order is from 

fundamentei above indicates plainly that the activities of the child ought 

to accessory. 

at first to employ mainly elemental coordinations in- 
volving fundamental nerve centers; and progress should 
be made slowly to the point where the most accessory 
nerve processes are extensively utiUzed. Looking at 
the matter from a physiological standpoint, exercise 
should lead to organization proceeding outward from the 
centers first developed. During the process of maturing, 
then, centers isolated in infancy would be brought ever 
more closely together; centers wholly unconnected at 
the start would be brought into correspondence with one 
another in maturity. Now, in the development of motor 
ability, as we have seen, the centers governing the arm 
as a whole mature earliest ; and they should be exercised, 
and so organized first since they become a sort of thorough- 
fare for the impulses to the other cortical centers control- 
ling the more distal groups of muscles. It is suggestive 
that Seguin in the training of the idiot's hand attained 
the greatest success when he began with movements of 
the shoulder. The training of these fundamental centers 
apparently arouse to activity the centers next beyond, 
and these in turn, if exercised at the proper time, will 
prepare the way for the functioning of those next in order; 
and so throughout the whole course of education we should 
proceed continually from activities relatively central or fun- 
damental to those relatively more peripheral or accessory. 



FROM FUNDAMENTAL TO ACCESSORY IN EDUCATION 1 49 

Our present-day conceptions of human nature enforce The doc- 
trine of 
upon us the view that there is an order of development nascent 

periods. 

which must be observed in education. What that order 
is has not been worked out in any detail in respect of 
many functions, but yet it seems well estabhshed for the 
activity we are considering in this chapter. And there is 
a growing conviction that if we ignore this order we shall 
do the child harm. The theory is that every nerve center 
has its special period of development, and if it is compelled 
to function before the appropriate time, some disorder 
will ensue. To illustrate: the optic nerve in a kitten's 
eye is not medullated until several days after birth, but if 
the eye be forced open at birth the process of medullation 
is hastened, but with injury to the nerve and eye.^ 

Hartwell ^ expresses the same thought when, in speak- 
ing of the training of speech function, he says that, "In 
vocal utterance there are three sets of movements, those 
of breathing, those of phonation, and those of articula- 
tion. Breathing is effected mainly by the most central 
of all muscles, and its movements occur in simplest suc- 
cession and in brief and simple rhythm. Voice is pro- 
duced mainly by movements of the larynx — movements 
that are midway between the central movements of articu- 
lation; and the sequence of these movements is interme- 
diate in complexity between those of breathing and those 

• Burk, op. cit. 

^ See Add. and Proc. Inter. Congress of Education, 1893, p. 743. 



150 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

of articulation. . . . Now advance to the extreme pe- 
riphery and take the movements of articulation. Each 
spoken word, like each vnritten word, requires for its for- 
mation several movements succeeding each other in 
definite order at definite intervals; and each sentence 
is a long sequence made up of many such short sequences 
arranged in a definite order. The number of different 
movements of the articulatory apparatus that go to 
make up even a short speech is therefore enormous, and 
these movements and sequences of movement occur 
rarely, and at intervals that are extremely irregular. 

" It is important to note here that the three sets of 
neuro-muscular mechanisms mentioned above are not of 
the same order. The organs of respiration are the most 
central or fundamental of the series. The organs of 
phonation, which give vocal character to the stream of 
expired air from the lungs, are intermediate, and their 
neural mechanisms are, therefore, to be considered as 
accessory in comparison with those of the breathing 
organs, but relatively fundamental in comparison with 
the centers which represent the movements of the more 
peripheral organs of articulation. It is indisputably 
certain that the young child learns to breathe and cry 
aloud before it can speak, and that there is a progressive 
development in his power to imitate and reproduce the 
consonant sounds, after he has begun to speak. It seems 
to me that we may safely aver that the law of the evolution 



FROM FUNDAMENTAL TO ACCESSORY IN EDUCATION 151 

of the nervous system is of great pedagogical importance, 
since it suggests the natural order which should be fol- 
lowed in training the organs concerned in any complex 
coordinated movements. For instance, it is transgressing 
the laws of nature to emphasize the training of the fingers 
before the neuro- muscular mechanisms of the hand, arm, 
and shoulder have become thoroughly organized, and their 
respective movements been brought under control; or 
to attempt to teach a child to read aloud before he has 
learned to speak plainly and readily. Dr. H. Gutzmann 
declares that in fully half of the children who enter school 
the power of speech is undeveloped." 

Again, modern theory maintains that if a nerve center The appro- 
priate 
is not exercised properly during its nascent period, it will time to 

develop 

be arrested in its development, for it loses its plasticity any power, 
when the wave of ripening moves past it to other centers. 
Donaldson has pointed out that the absence of appropriate 
stimulus during the growing period is for the most part 
irremediable ; and this results, as I have already intimated, 
not only in the arrest of this particular function, but it 
influences other functions by interfering with the readi- 
ness of association between centers that can become 
connected only through the undeveloped one. So, too, 
Crichton Browne ^ has called attention to the fact that 
organs have a period of growth activity and another of 

1 "The Relation of the Nervous System to Education," Chap. IV 
of Morris's " Book of Health." 



152 THE MOTbk FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

functional activity, and when the latter is beginning to 
gather strength is the time to make or mar it, and all the 
functions with which Ht is in any way associated. The 
nascent period of any function may by suitable nutrition 
be prolonged and so a better basis laid for subsequent 
development, whereas by too great haste or by neglect 
the opportunity may be lost forever. Burk ^ has men- 
tioned an interesting illustration of the principle here in 
question. He maintains that beneficial results in devel- 
oping lung capacity can be obtained only by training 
during adolescence, when this particular function is matur- 
ing. Lung exercises accomphsh Httle or nothing when 
"perpetrated upon boys under twelve years." 
The danger It has been said that the development of a function 

of arrest 
in de- 
velopment. 



inde- could be retarded by failing to provide nutrition for it 



at the time when it is ripening; but there is a particular 
aspect of this principle which I may allude to in passing. 
A child may be kept performing any low order of activity 
even when in the natural process of evolution it would be 
outgrown, or at least the attention would be given mainly 
to something else. For instance, she could be kept 
playing with her doll beyond the point where she would 
spontaneously do so. She might be rewarded in some 
way for this, or she might be left with nothing else to do, 
and she would settle down upon this activity when she 

» "The Influence of Exercise upon Growth," read at the meeting of 
the Physical Education Section, N. E. A., Los Angeles, July, 1899. 



FROM FUNDAMENTAL TO ACCESSORY IN EDUCATION 1 53 

should be moving on to something more complex. The 
effect of this in her development would be to prevent the 
maturing of the higher powers. This principle has en- 
gaged the attention of many writers in our own day, 
among others Harris/ who has said that if a child at any 
particular epoch in his development is compelled to repeat 
any fixed form of action belonging to a lower stage of 
development, the tendency will be for him to stop at that 
point, and it will be difficult, if not impossible, to get him 
up on to a higher plane. Overcultivation of the senses 
in the early years, or too much drill upon memory, will 
prevent the development of higher psychical powers. 
Thoroughness in the pursuit of any study in the elementary 
school may result in cessation instead of promotion of 
mental growth. 

We have in autobiography many illustrations of this 
principle. Stillman,^ for instance, speaks of the effect 
upon his career of being compelled to study linguistics 
excessively when he was developing great interest in 
art, as a result of which he never achieved anything in 
art because his interest was not seized upon when it was 
at its height. Higher activities will not develop without 
adequate nutrition in the shape of appropriate stimuli 
from the environment. Luckey corroborates the point 
under consideration when he says that heredity has 

• "Educational Creeds of the Nineteenth Century," pp. 39-40. 

* See his "Autobiography." 



154 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

doubtless given an individual the basis for delicate color 
perception, but he will not grow up to the highest point 
of appreciation without stimulations from the environ- 
ment. The latent powers are called forth through the 
necessity of employing them in deahng with the world. 
If the child be shut up in a cave, the color sense will not 
develop. Heredity only gives the individual a general 
disposition; experience is necessary to make it definite 
and conscious, Lloyd Morgan has said that in all prob- 
abihty the experience of the race has left impressions 
upon the brain of the individual, which, however, except 
in a few cases, are never expressed in definite action with- 
out experience after birth. The few instincts which the 
child can perform are exceptions to this law, but prac- 
tically everything which an individual becomes able to do 
must be the resultant of experience cooperating with 
heredity. Allin ^ has discussed the principle with rela- 
tion to the development of the individual as a social being. 
He says that the latent inherited social traits and charac- 
teristics will not make their appearance in the individual's 
life except in an environment that will call them forth. 

This principle of a flood tide in the development of 
activities seems to have universal apphcation. In intel- 
lectual evolution, it is commonly believed that knowl- 
edge presented at the wrong time is not assimilated but 
is lost, just as the seed is which is planted in the untilled 

' "Social Recapitulation," Educ. Rev., Vol. XVIII, p. 344. 



FROM FUNDAMENTAL TO ACCESSORY IN EDUCATION 1 55 

field. So, too, precocity due to forcing a child produces Theevii 
an undue excitement and is apt to exhaust the mind, leav- tardiness 

orprecoc- 

inff it sterile forever. "Infant prodigies rarely become dis- ity in edu- 

° -^ cation. 

tinguished men unless their extraordinary growth be the 
result not of excessive and abnormal culture but of ex- 
traordinary natural endowments." ^ It is a simple enough 
fact that children are at one period in their development 
exceedingly eager in the pursuit of some special activity, 
as doll play, or hammering, or hunting, but they grow 
through this in time, and take up with something else. 
v., in his second year, dehghted in nothing so much as in 
throwing. Whenever he could get out of the house he 
would go to the street and search for some object which 
he could fling, it made no difference where. But before 
he was four he lost interest in a measure in this pastime. 
In its place came hoop-rolling and various games with 
carts, dogs, and so on. Later still tricycle riding and 
constructive work in making boxes and the like became 
prominent, and so the scenes continually shifted. It 
seems reasonable to suppose that the spontaneous activi- 
ties of children in some way minister to special needs at 
particular times ; which means, on the neurological side, 
that certain activities exercise special nerve areas and 
correlated motor processes when the impulse of growth 
is upon them. It is conceivable that when a center is 
awakening there is urgency, tension perhaps, in the 

* Compayr^, "Psychology applied to Education," p. 41. 



156 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

motor activities it is designed to instigate, and by exercise 
a condition of equilibrium is attained. Energy unex- 
pressed results in restlessness; and the discharge of the 
pent-up forces in appropriate action gives relief and so is 
pleasurable. 

On the educational side this means that we must en- 
deavor to follow in our training the natural order of devel- 
opment of any function, if we can discover what this is. 
In the matter of motor development, it is clear that the 
eye- muscles and body- muscles, as well as the nerve- cells, 
of a child four or five years of age have not attained the 
degree of maturity essential to perform with safety the 
ordinary kindergarten exercises of weaving and plaiting 
and threading. The effort to accomplish these tasks 
leads inevitably to strain and exhaustion.^ "When I 
have seen little ones of four and five years of age," says 
Oppenheim,^ "laboriously trying, by straining all their 
little control of body and will, to put a too fine needle 
through a series of correspondingly small holes, the 
thought of kindness turned to cruelty, of good being twisted 
into bad, has always come to me. In the same category 
are the exercises of pricking in outhnes, of stringing small 
beads, of outlining with seeds, beads and similarly minute 
objects." In some experiments conducted upon H. and 
M., before they were four years of age, I found that the 

* Oppenheim, op. ciL, p. 102. 
^ Ibid., p. 103. 



FROM FUNDAMENTAL TO ACCESSORY IN EDUCATION 1 57 

Stringing of beads with small perforations would quickly 
fatigue them. This task always occasioned a good deal 
of strain and tension, as shown in the contortions of the 
face, the attitudes of the body, and the contractions of the 
fingers. After ten minutes of such exercise the average 
child will grow restless, perhaps peevish and irritable. M., 
in performing this task at three, became fatigued in a 
shorter time. After five minutes she would throw away 
the beads, and could not be induced to continue except 
by urging, much as the teacher compels the child against 
his wishes to keep at writing his lesson with a fine pen, 
for example. I may add that I think most children are 
dehghted with a string of beads, and they will punish 
themselves to get them, but we are not to infer from this 
that they are interested in the activity of stringing in it- 
self, but only as a means to an end. And even if there 
should be some pleasure in performing this task, it will 
be much more marked when the stringing requires less 
strain and tension.^ 
In apparent opposition to the view here presented. Pro- judd on 

, . the develop- 

fessor Judd mamtains that the peripheral muscles are ment of 

peripheral 

earliest affected by diffuse stimulations, which is just activities, 
what we might expect when we consider how dehcate 
they are. As an inference from this he concludes that 

* The energic aspects of this matter are discussed in Part II. I try 
to show there that excessively fine work, especially on the part of children, 
results in serious waste of nervous energy. 

* See the Joiirn. of Fed., June, 1901. 



158 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

the warning which has been sounded against finely 
coordinated movements in the early years has been over- 
done. There is some reason, he grants, for the crusade 
against fine work, but it is justified, not because of the 
immature centers which control the fine muscles, but 
because of the tendency of the child to use them excessively. 
" To say that the large muscles are naturally more active 
in writing is simply to fly in the face of facts.^' The 
small movements occur in great abundance as one of the 
natural results of diffusion, and the tendency on the part 
of the child is to give excessive attention to them. 

Without question the peripheral muscles are in the 
earUest years readily stimulated, but this is not to say 
that they are or can be coordinated in the accomplishment 
of difflcult tasks. An infant's fingers and toes and ex- 
pressive muscles are exceedingly active, but not in a co- 
ordinated way in the sense in which coordination has been 
described heretofore. Further, it is not true that a child 
of two or three, or four or five even, can as a general thing 
perform intricate peripheral coordinations without undue 
activity of fundamental muscles. Young children, as 
I have said above, usually put a lot of force into activities 
that require only dehcate and precise manipulation. The 
peripheral muscles are not principally employed by the 
young child in his spontaneous writing, according to my 
observation. Most teachers have to labor years with 
children before they can get them to write in their copy 



FROM FUNDAMENTAL TO ACCESSORY IN EDUCATION 1 59 

books without bearing on heavily. Again, they blot 
their books because they jab their pens through the paper, 
and commit many other blunders that are said to be due 
to carelessness, which in such cases means simply lack 
of precise adjustment ; and this means, for one thing, too 
great prominence of the fundamental muscles in the 
coordinating complex. 

Mr. Burk ^ has effectively summarized the matter alike The doc- 

, , . . . trine sum- 

m its developmental and m its educational aspects, and manzed. 
his words may be quoted, "(i) As a primary condition 
which makes accuracy of hand and arm possible, the 
child must have a matured degree of control under direc- 
tion of his higher level centres (i.e. voluntary). The fact 
that this maturity is not reached normally, until the ninth 
or tenth year, renders questionable the efforts of the school 
to compel accuracy such as is required by the kindergarten, 
and also by the primary school, in writing, weaving, etc. 
... (4) That for purposes of delicate peripheral move- 
ments, as shown by ataxographic experiments, etc., the child 
has not a matured power of control until well into the 
school period, and long after severe school requirements 
of accuracy are demanded; (5) that the evidence goes 
to show that the sensory- kinaesthetic sensations, essential 
in psychological theory, for definite voluntary movements 
are, in general, in a very immature state until eight to ten 
years; ... (8) that steadiness of the trunk or central 

' See the Journ. of Fed., pp. 59-60. 



l6o THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

movements (fundamental) necessarily precedes ability to 
be accurate in peripheral (or accessory) movements." * 
When one points out the necessity of not requiring 
of young children too much highly coordinated work he 
has told only half the story. We must do more than 
merely avoid doing harm ; we must in a positive way plan 
it so that ultimately the pupil shall be required to perform 
the most intricate activities of which he is capable, and 
which may be required of him in the situations in which he 
may be placed in mature hfe. We cannot let the child 
run his own motor course unaided and unstimulated, 
else he will probably come to a standstill before he has 
reached the goal toward which we have started him. So 
by the time the pupil has reached the last years of the ele- 
mentary school we ought to require of him precise work 
in his writing and drawing and articulation, and gymnas- 
tics and construction work. "Carelessness" may now be 
treated with some severity, so as to get the pupil into the 
way of acting peripherally, so to speak. If we let him 
alone wholly he will tend to remain in the fundamental 
stage, for these activities lie along the lines of least resist- 
ance. But in mature hfe, under present conditions, 
one's welfare depends in very large degree upon his 
abihty to do exact, precise, fine work ; and he is not hkely 

' Baldwin, in the Joiirn. of Fed., June, 1901, makes statements very 
similar to those made by Burk. See also the following: Rowe, "The 
Physical Nature of the Child and How to Study it," chapter on Motor 
Ability; Kirkpatrick, "Fundamentals of Child-Study," Chap. V. 



FROM FUNDAMENTAL TO ACCESSORY IN EDUCATION l6l 

to develop this ability entirely of his own accord. The 
school must urge him somewhat. In no other way, it 
seems, can he be brought to the point where he can deal 
effectively with the extremely complex environments 
into which he will be cast at maturity. 

TOPICS FOR INVESTIGATION AND DISCUSSION 

1. When you entered the primary school were you ex- 
pected to write with pen and ink in a precisely coordinated 
manner? If so, what has been the effect of such an experi- 
ence upon your later development? 

2. See if you can secure some thoroughly reliable evidence 
upon this question : Will those persons who are required in the 
early years in school to write very slowly and precisely have 
a more efficient mastery of penmanship in maturity than those 
who are encouraged to write freely and boldly, with slight 
reference to mechanical, technical, or aesthetic perfection? 

3. Observe children writing with (a) fine-pointed pens; 
(b) hard lead pencils; (c) soft lead pencils; (d) chalk on the 
blackboard. If given freedom, which will they choose? 
Which can they continue at the longest without fatigue ? 

4. Comment on the policy of many schools of exhibiting 
only the penmanship of pupils of all ages, the purpose being 
to stimulate them to be mechanically accurate. 

5. Comment on the policy of many schools of marking 
down all written work if the penmanship is not mechanically 
perfect, no matter how excellent may be the thought expressed. 

6. Secure all the evidence you can on this question: Is 
mechanically perfect penmanship an aid or a hindrance in the 
expression of thought? Are the most vigorous and effective 



1 62 THE MQTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

thinkers the best writers, judged by the standards of those who 
insist on mechanical perfection ? 

7. Suppose a child of five years should come to school to 
you, and he should be deficient in articulating all intricate 
sounds, as the ng's on the ends of words, for instance; what, 
precisely, would you do in training him to articulate ? 

8. If you have sewing in the primary grades, do you use 
needles with small eyes, requiring the pupils to do their own 
threading? Discuss the principle involved, and apply it to 
all activities in manual training. 

9. Would you require pupils of any age to perform tasks 
requiring precision and intricate motor coordination? Be 
specific with respect to ages and tasks. 

10. Would you advise parents to provide small playthings 
for their young children, — tiny dolls, small building blocks, 
diminutive, fragile dishes, and the Hke? Why? 



CHAPTER XI 

RESUME 

Reviewing the ground we have covered, we have seen 
that motor activity is the chief characteristic of the young ; 
whatever passes within tends to work out into appro- 
priate conduct. Arms, legs, vocal organs, and body as a 
whole are continually in action during waking life, and to 
some extent even during sleep. "The child thinks with 
his muscles" is coming to be an accepted doctrine. 

The infant lacks inhibition almost wholly. He gives 
way easily to all his emotions and passions. Every 
stimulus appears to issue directly in some form of action. 
Only when his attention is held by a story, for instance, 
can he keep his muscles quiet-, and then but for a very 
brief interval. However, control increases with develop- 
ment. Regarded from the neurological standpoint, in- 
hibition depends upon using energy at one point and 
withdrawing it from other points. So as the child's imag- 
ing activity increases, his muscles gradually lose their 
prominence. In cases of degeneracy, though, just the 
reverse of this process occurs ; inhibition is gradually lost. 
This phenomenon is seen in insanity, old age, inebriety, 
and so on. 

163 



164 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

If inhibition be imposed upon the child too early, it 
will interfere with his mental development. In the early 
years, especially, inind functions to direct action; and if 
the latter is impossible, there is no incentive to the former. 
Static education should have no place at any period in 
the pupil's Hfe, but it is particularly ineffective in the 
kindergarten and elementary school. Action is necessary, 
in the first place, for the development of cerebral motor 
areas, upon which the development of the sensory and 
associative areas seems to depend in some measure. 
Further, the child can acquire a genuine understanding 
of a thing only as he has motor experience with it, as he 
does something with it. Eye and ear knowledge alone 
are of little profit. However, as the pupil develops past 
motor experiences may apperceptively give him under- 
standing of present situations without reacting upon them 
in a motor way; but we must be sure that he has had 
motor experience with similar situations. 

When we come to the school we find that motor activity 
has not yet received general recognition, though the ideal 
of static education is passing. Reform has begun in the 
kindergarten, but even the kindergarten is not yet wholly 
free. It still tries to feed babes on abstract truths for 
which their mental digestive organs are wholly unprepared. 
Nothing should be taught, in the kindergarten or else- 
where, that cannot be lived, worked out into conduct, 
established in motor experiences ; this is the first educational 



RESUME 165 

law. The dynamic side of every study — arithmetic, 
language, science, geography — must be made most 
prominent. 

Manual activities must have a prominent place in early 
education. The real value of manual activities is found 
in their beneficial influence upon the intellectual and 
ethical phases of the child's nature, though they affect 
happily his whole being. The child's greatest interest 
is in constructive activities, and manual training should 
seize upon this interest and provide for its realization. It 
is significant that in the training of defective and delin- 
quent children manual activities are given chief place at 
the start. 

Manual training, in order to be of value, must follow 
the lead of the child's interests, and not run off on a 
formal, logical tangent. The child should get aid from 
his manual training to carry on his imitative play outside 
of school. He should be helped to make things in which 
he is interested. In general, the child in his construc- 
tions will follow the race in its industrial evolution. This 
impHes that he will not begin by making objects mathe- 
matically and aesthetically excellent, though structurally 
simple, as a sphere or a cyhnder. A crude house is more 
simple to a child than a cyhnder precisely made. 

There are certain limitations to the value of manual 
activities. It is a mistake to think that the will is trained 
more perfectly by the hammer and the saw than by other 



l66 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

educative materials. Honesty and kindred virtues devel- 
oped with reference to physical situations may not be 
available in social situations. As the pupil develops, a 
less and less prominent place should be given to manual 
training, except in the case of the student who will spend 
his life in the pursuit of a trade. 

Although the child comes among us fitted out with an 
elaborate kit of tools for operating upon the world, still 
he is entirely lacking in the knowledge of how to use 
them. His earliest activities are not adaptive; his life 
is at first entirely subjective. In gaining adaptive ac- 
tivities he must pass through a stage of random action 
wherein some of his movements accidentally hit the mark ; 
that is, they yield him pleasure in some form. He tries 
to have these successes repeated; and just because they 
are beneficial they are repeated more often in the general 
spontaneity of the child than the useless or injurious 
activities. This results in the adaptive activities coming 
gradually to be the only ones performed; the others 
die out from lack of use. This is in outline the natural 
history of every adaptive action ; though as the individual 
acquires a body of elementary activities he can employ 
these in the complex acts into which they enter. 

The learning of any new act involves excessive activity 
at the outset. The novice cannot hit the mark the first 
time. He must make many trials ; and when he acciden- 
tally succeeds he will discover just what processes are 



RESUME 167 

essential to the performance of his task, and then he will 
have some guide for the operation of volition in succeed- 
ing trials. This principle of learning holds throughout 
life ; but as the individual develops he becomes possessed 
of an ever increasing stock of motor ideas which he can 
bring to the execution of any new task, so that he can 
perform it more readily than he could in the beginning. 
In adult hfe we have already mastered the elements of all 
the arts, games, etc., we are required to learn, and the new 
factor consists simply in combining these elements into 
series or patterns or complexes. It may be added that 
probably very few of our actions are learned absolutely 
de novo; we gain something from racial experience, but 
we must develop the negative, as it were, by our own 
experience. 

Imitation is a peculiar form of adaptive activity. Every 
imitative act, however, must be learned in the manner 
that has been indicated above. An individual cannot 
imitate an act until he can perform the action himself 
deliberately. When a child tries to imitate a complex act, 
he will reproduce only so much of it as he has himself 
performed spontaneously. We see and hear in terms 
of our motor habits, in considerable part at least. 

In acquiring any art the child must pass through the 
"scribble" stage, wherein motor processes are but 
slightly controlled or directed by mental images. When 
the child begins writing he has Httle appreciation of literal 



1 68 THE MOTOR FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

forms to be reproduced. In teaching any art, the first 
thing to do is to give the child the motor data essential 
to the performance of the art. It will accomphsh little 
to command the novice to "pay attention" or "be more 
careful," and the like. 

At the outset the child has only very sHght power of 
coordinating various parts of his organism in the execu- 
tion of intricate tasks. People have always recognized 
this, but they have said it was due to lack of strength. 
However, the child has muscle enough, but he cannot use 
it advantageously, except in a few instinctive ways. 
Central or fundamental movements predominate at the 
outset, and the wave of development moves outward 
toward the extremities. The young child is long in gross 
muscle but very short in coordination of the most accessory 
parts of his organism, — fingers as used in writing, tongue 
as used in speech, etc. He puts a relatively large amount 
of force into the performance of even the most dehcate 
tasks. He might be called a biceptual creature. As 
development proceeds, the energy is distributed ever more 
largely over the whole of the manual, vocal, and pedal 
systems, instead of being expended entirely upon the 
fundamental parts of each. In speech as in manual ac- 
tivities the child is at first forceful rather than dehcate, 
crude rather than refined, central rather than peripheral 
minded. 

In an earher day it was thought that the child, being 



RESUME 169 

small, should be required to use small implements in all 
his work, and perform fine, delicate tasks. But the 
rightful order of education, following the natural order of 
development, is from fundamental to accessory. Coarse, 
crude, rapid work must come before refined, delicate, 
painstaking work. Peripheral is conditioned by central 
development; if the latter is neglected, the former must 
suffer. 

On the other hand, if we permit the child to take his 
own gait he will be hkely to stop upon some low stage 
of development. To keep him at coarse, crude work 
continually would be a serious mistake. We must set 
the pace for him by always keeping him striving to ac- 
comphsh tasks just ahead of his present stage of evolution. 
We must avoid either tardiness or precocity in his training. 



PART II 
THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

CHAPTER XII 

ACTIVITY AS REQUIRING THE EXPENDITURE OF ENERGY 

From the earliest times men have endeavored to ascer- 
tain just what is the connection between the physical and 
the mental in the human organism. This has been the 
subject of primary importance alike for mythology, for 
rehgion, for philosophy, and in our own day for experi- 
mental science. The conception of the mind most char- 
acteristic of primitive reflection, in the individual as in 
the race, regards it as a tenant of the body, or the "body's 
guest." This notion does not imply any organic connec- 
tion between mind and body. There is but a sort of tan- 
gential relation, so to speak ; and the spirit can if it chooses 
free itself wholly from the domination of the "wall of 
flesh" in which it is momentarily entombed. It is only 
when one's will is lethargic or perverse that he yields to 
the promptings from the body, which, unhappily, are 
usually of an evil sort. 

170 



ACTIVITY AS REQUIRING EXPENDITURE OF ENERGY 17I 

Holding this view men believed during long epochs 
that they ought to scourge the body that they might thus 
purify and elevate the mind. If the animal be not held 
in subjection by such discipline it will corrupt the spirit. 
This doctrine, it is needless to say, is quite in contrast to 
the theories of these later days, when it is maintained by 
most men that the more respect we pay the body, the 
kindlier and more faithfully we attend its needs, the 
greater will be the reward in spiritual exaltation and 
freedom. Locke tells us we can have a sound mind only 
in a sound body; and Rousseau shows us the other side 
of the shield when he tells us that a weak body enfeebles 
the mind. 

In the early stages of the development of physiology Mind as 

matter. 

and kindred sciences there sprung up a theory respectmg 
the relations of mind and body directly opposed to that 
mentioned above. In an ultimate analysis, it was said, 
mind can be reduced to material terms. This concep- 
tion seems rational enough from one point of view, since 
the phenomena observed on the occasion of injury to or 
degeneracy of the central nervous mechanism lend them- 
selves readily to such an interpretation. People remark 
that if the brain suffer damage from any cause some mental 
defect or deficiency usually ensues; and when for any 
reason the cerebrum becomes inactive, there is no evi- 
dence of any supra- cerebral activity remaining. So 
far, in short, as we can observe mental manifestations 



172 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

ab extra, they appear to be directly dependent upon, or 
even aspects of, neural functioning. This second view, 
then, makes the mind a phase or phenomenon of matter, 
a sort of reverberation resulting from the breaking up of 
highly organized cellular bodies. 

There is yet a third view advanced by philosophers and 
scientists Hke Lotze,^ Darwin,^ Romanes,' Wallace,'' 
Fiske,' Wundt,' and James,' which regards the mind and 
body, so far as it passes opinion upon the nature of each, 
as distinct entities, but in some inexphcable manner 
bound to each other in such a way that activities of the 
one occasion correlated activities in the other. This is 
doubtless the principle Sterne has in mind when he says, 
in "Tristram Shandy," "A man's body and his mind 
. . . are exactly like a jerkin and a jerkin's lining; — 
rumple the one . . . you rumple the other." The adher- 
ents of this doctrine pin their faith to what may be styled 
a dynamic, or better an energic, relation between mind and 
body. Modern experimental science gives us the doctrine 
that "every psychosis is accompanied by a neurosis," 
although, of course, complete and final evidence upon 

' " Microcosmus." 
^ " Descent of Man." 

* "Mental Evolution in Man." 

* "Darwinism." 

* "Destiny of Man in the Light of his Origin." 

* " Human and Animal Psychology," pp. 5-7 and 440-445. 

^ "The Will to Believe," chapter on Refle.x Action and Theism. 



ACTIVITY AS REQUIRING EXPENDITURE OF ENERGY 1 73 

this subject is for the present, at least, quite beyond the 
ability of science to obtain/ 

But it seems reasonably certain, for one thing — the 
only one that concerns us here — that all mental activity 
involves the expenditure of energy generated by nerve 
cells. The architecture of the cell, in the absence of 
more positive experimental data, vv^ould of itself lead one 
to this inference. The plan of construction is simple. 
There is a central body or nucleus v^hich serves the pur- 
pose of husbanding resources, as it were; and connected 
directly with this are fibers or pathways some of which 
are designed to convey stimuh from the world without to 
the nucleus of the cell, whereupon energy is released, while 
other fibers convey the Uberated energy to other cells, 
and ultimately to the muscles, probably. (See Figs. 3, 4 
on following page.) 

The substances within the nucleus are believed to be of Familiar evi- 
dence that 
a highly complex and unstable chemical composition,^ aii activity 

expends 

in consequence of which they are easily broken down, nervous 
the static energy of their union thus being set free. Neu- 
rology assumes that all mental and motor action requires 

^ For the opinions of investigators, as Mosso, Lombard, Maggiora, 
Kraeplin, and others, see the Fed. Sent., Vol. II, No. i, pp. 13-17; 
Scripture, "The New Psychology," Chap. XVI, and The Educ. Rev., 
Vol. XV, pp. 246 et seq. 

^ Ladd, in his "Physiological Psychology," pp. 13-14, gives the fol- 
lowing formulae of some of the substances: Protagon, C116H241N4O22P ; 
Cholesterin, CaeHi^Oi-HgO. 



energy. 



174 



THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 



for its initiation and maintenance the expenditure of some 
of this force held in potentia in the nuclei of nerve cells. 
People do not commonly appreciate this, in part because 
they do not reflect upon the matter, though even careful 
introspection reveals thought as a spiritual activity dis- 
sociated from, or at least not dependent upon, nervous 





Fig. 3. Fig. 4. 

Figs. 3 and 4. — Representations of typical nerve cells (Donaldson, " Growth of 
the Brain," pp. 143 and 145) designed especially to show the elements 
concerned in the reception of stimuli, d ; in the generation and storage 
of potential nervous force, N; and finally in the transmission of kinetic 
nerve energy, n. 

functioning. It is not easy for me to conceive that my ideas 
are hnked to nerve cells, and remain dormant except when 
these are active ; and it matters not for the present which is 
cause and which effect. But if one will note some of the 
very obvious bodily accompaniments of his thinking he 
will not lack for opportunities to see that arduous mental 



ACTIVITY AS REQUIRING EXPENDITURE OF ENERGY 1 75 

work often sets the blood flowing headwards, which is 
shown in distention of blood vessels and in a sense of pres- 
sure or strain in the cephaKc regions. Every student at 
least should know that continued study often increases 
the temperature about the head, and leaves the extremities 
— hands and feet — cold. 

These phenomena are easily observed in simple psy- 
chological experiments, wherein it is possible to show that 
when a subject exerts his mind in the effort to solve a 
difficult problem, for example, the volume of blood in 
the cerebral locaUty increases. It was the physiologist, 
Angelo Mosso,^ I beUeve, who first demonstrated this fact 
experimentally with the plethysmograph. And he was 
able to illustrate the same phenomenon in another way. 
A subject was placed upon a delicately constructed balance 
which remained horizontal while his mind was compara- 
tively at rest, or at least in a quiescent state. But when 
he was summoned to severe intellectual effort, or when 

^ Reference is made to this phenomenon in Mosso's "Fear," p. 68. 
The subject is treated in detail with respect to methods of investigation 
and results, in "Die Ermiidung," pp. 195 et seq. (Since these chapters 
were written Mosso's "Fatigue" has been translated; New York, Put- 
nam and Sons, 1904.) There is a good risumi of recent investigation 
relating to the effect upon circulation of intellectual and emotional 
activity, together with the presentation of results of original researches, 
in the Psych. Rev. for January, 1899, by Angell and Thompson, — "The 
Relation between Certain Organic Processes and Consciousness." The 
best work on this general subject, however, is Binet and Henri, " La 
Fatigue Intellectuelle," to which reference will be made later. 



176 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

any lively emotion was aroused, the balance tipped in 
the direction of the head, indicating that the blood was 
surging brainward, and so away from the limbs.^ Key ^ 
declares that intense mental activity among the upper 
classes of Sweden has resulted in a marked increase in 
the tendency to nosebleed. The rise in cerebral tem- 
perature during intellectual effort has been studied by 
Lombard, Schiff, and others by means of the thermo- 
electric needle plunged into the brains of dogs and other 
animals. When in this latter case any sense was stimu- 
lated, as smell, the needle if placed in the olfactory 
region of the brain seemed to show that heat was being 
liberated. 
Some physio- The significance of these well-known, but yet little appre- 

logical evi- 
dence, ciated, phenomena becomes apparent when they are in- 
terpreted in view of the accepted explanations of similar 
phenomena occurring during muscular exertion. It is 
a simple physiological fact that the volume of blood in a 
muscle is greater when it is active than when it is at rest, 
due doubtless to the need of removing and repairing the 
increased waste produced by the breaking down of cells 
in consequence of work. Now, it may be readily inferred 
that the increased cerebral circulation attending vigorous 
intellectual or emotional activity occurs for the purpose of 
removing waste, and supplying nerve cells with nutritive 

* Cf. Binet and Henri, op. cit., pp. 81 ff. 

* See Kotelmann, "School Hygiene," p. 219. 



ACTIVITY AS REQUIRING EXPENDITURE OF ENERGY 1 77 

materials. Physicians like Cowles/ Beard,^ and Mills' 
say that certain toxic or waste products of nervous ac- 
tion increase pari passu with intensified intellectual or 
emotional activity. Nervous as well as physical action 
seems to result in the production of a sort of debris in 
the system, which is, as we might expect, just worn-out 
or degraded tissue, and which may accumulate to such 
an extent as to disturb the normal functioning of the 
nervous system. Especially does it tend to throw out of 
gear the inhibitory apparatus, paralyzing the fatigue 
sense, as some one has said, and thus removing the natural 
checks to excessive physical or mental activity, when the 
organism may continue to exert itself beyond the safety 
limit. 

The experiments by Hodge,* though their worth is 
questioned in some quarters to-day, still seem to show, in 
the case of animals at any rate, that activity of a nerve 
cell depletes the nucleus of its contents to a greater 

* "Neurasthenia and its Mental Symptoms." 

* "Neurasthenia." 

' "Mental Overwork and Premature Disease among Public Men," 
Smithsonian Institute, No. IX of Toner Lectures. See also, in this 
connection, Wood's "Brain-work and Overwork" (Philadelphia, 1880) 
and Richardson's "Diseases of Modern Life" (London, 1876). 

* See the following articles : " Some Aspects of Electrically Stimulat- 
ing Ganglion Cells," Am. Journ. Psych., Vol. II, pp. 376 et seq.; and the 
"Process of Recovery from Fatigue occasioned by the Electrical Stimu- 
lation of Cells of the Spinal Ganglia," Am. Journ. Psych., Vol. Ill, pp. 530 
et seq. 

N 



of fatigue. 



178 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

or less extent, revealed in a gradual shrinking while stimu- 
lation continues, as shown in Figs. 5 and 6. This phe- 
nomenon, which he was able to detect while experimenting 
with a living cell under stimulation, was observed also 
in the examination of animals at night after a day's work, 
and in the morning when they had passed a long period 
in rest. In the first instance the nuclei of the cells were 
shrunken, while in the morning they presented a repleted 
appearance, indicating that the activities of waking life 
had resulted in partial exhaustion of their stock of force- 
producing materials. 
The theory The last point leads us directly to the subject of fatigue, 

which is coming to occupy so prominent a place in edu- 
cational literature. We are told that one important 
function of the nervous system is to generate and dis- 
tribute the energy needed to carry on both mental and 
motor activities. Now, theoretically there is in every 
individual case a point beyond which energy cannot 
be expended without considerable disturbance to all 
the functions of the organism. If this disturbance be 
but momentary, one is said to be "weary," or "tired," 
but if it continue for a long period one is said to be 
fatigued, or exhausted. In recent years psychologists 
and physiologists have been unusually active in ex- 
perimenting with individuals to determine the "course 
of power," with respect to a wide range of activities and 
under a great variety of conditions. They have been par- 



ACTIVITY AS REQUIRING EXPENDITURE OF ENERGY 1 79 







6-49 



Fig. 5. 



Fig. 6. 



Fig. 5. — Two sections, A and B, from the first thoracic spinal ganglion of a 
cat. B is from the ganglion which had been electrically stimulated through 
its nerve for five hours, A from the corresponding resting ganglion. The 
shrinkage of the structure connected with the stimulated cells is the most 
marked general change. N, nucleus ; NS, nucleus of the capsule ; V, 
vacuole X 500 diameters. — HODGE. 

Fig. 6. — Showing the change observed in the nucleus of the living sympa- 
thetic nerve cell of the frog, as the result of electrical stimulation. At the 
beginning of the experiment the nucleus is seen to be replete with what we 
may call potential nerve energy ; but after thirty minutes of stimulation it 
appears somewhat shrunken, and the shrinking increases as the experi- 
ment proceeds. At the end of six hours and forty-nine minutes the shrink- 
ing of the nucleus is very marked. — Donaldson after Hodge. 



l8o THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

ticularly interested in the work of the school, and some of 
their reports have aroused teachers and parents and phy- 
sicians in an unusual manner. Throughout the civihzed 
world laymen are apprehensive lest the schools should 
make too heavy demands upon the energies of the young. 
And not only are laymen worrying over this matter, as 
is evident from the vast amount of literature appearing 
on the subject, but physicians are even more troubled. 
In Germany, in France, in England, and in America bodies 
of medical men have expressed their disapproval of our 
modern educational regime because it overtaxes the 
pupil. The Academy of Medicine in Paris, as early as 
1886, ascribed a long hst of children's diseases to school 
fatigue, and the list has been added to by the medical men 
of our own country. The word has gone out from men 
who ought to know that we are sapping the vitahty of 
the rising generation, and there is great anxiety and even 
dismay in the educational camp. 
Methods of We must glance a moment at the methods men have 

gation. adopted in determining the extent to which children are 

being overworked in the modern school. To begin with, 
Mosso made use largely of the ergograph,* which is de- 
signed to measure the amount of force that can be exerted 
through the middle finger, say, under varying conditions. 
He did not himself employ it in the study of schoolroom 
activities, but some of his followers have done so, for 

^ See his "Die Ermiidung," Chap. IV. 



ACTIVITY AS REQUIRING EXPENDITURE OF ENERGY l8l 

instance Smedley, of Chicago. I have elsewhere ^ pre- 
sented the results of some experiments with the ergo- 
graph, together with the inferences that have been drawn 
from them, and I need not delay upon these matters here. 
It should be indicated, however, that the latest research 
has apparently shown that the ergographic tests for fatigue 
are altogether unrehable. What may at first sight appear 
to be due to fatigue may upon more critical analysis be 
seen to be caused principally by other factors, as Ellis,^ 
Thorndike,^ Bolton,^ and others have indicated. A 
pupil who may in the morning put forth his best efforts 
on the ergograph, because it is novel to him, may do 
poorly at noon or at night because the thing has lost its 
novelty. His decreased vigor may be due rather to lack 
of interest than to lack of energy ; he may have an abun- 
dant supply of the latter if it could only be tapped. It is 
conceivable that a boy whose ergographic work at four 
o'clock in the afternoon would be quite defective could en- 
gage in a game of baseball with great enthusiasm and 
efficiency; indeed, we have doubtless all seen cases that 
illustrate the principle. Then there is some pain ex- 
perienced in operating the ergograph, and this would act 
as an inhibition upon effort. Thus other factors besides 
the energic one may play an important part in deter- 

1 Mainly in Chaps. XIII and XVIII. 

2 See the Am. Journ. Psych., Vol. XIV, pp. 232-245. 
» Psych. Rev., Vol. VII, pp. 466 ff. 

* Psych. Rev., Vol. VII, pp. 136 ff. 



1 82 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

mining how great an exertion the individual will make, so 
that the experimenter cannot be sure of his results. The 
difficulty is due to the fact that investigators have re- 
garded the failure to put forth effort as being due to 
one cause, whereas there may be many causes at work. 
It is a very complex, instead of a very simple, affair. 

The criticism of the ergographic test will apply fully 
to many of the others, — the tests with the aesthesiometer, 
for instance, to which Griesbach and his followers have 
attached so much importance. Students of Griesbach's 
method, such as Leuba,* have shown that there may be 
many factors, instead of one — fatigue — operating to 
influence a pupil's abihty to discriminate simultaneous 
touches on the skin. The writer has conducted many 
tests with the aesthesiometer, and he has always felt that 
suggestion was an extremely disturbing element, render- 
ing the results of the experiments more or less worthless. 
If the test be long continued, the subject easily tires, and 
goes wide of the mark; but the thing we are measuring 
then is not fatigue in the proper sense, but only momentary 
weariness. Lukens ^ has called attention to this point, and 
it is of the utmost importance. Then, as Leuba^ re- 
minds us, conditions affecting the peripheral organs will 
have an influence upon sensitivity in the aesthesiometric 
tests, as will also the subject's emotional tone at the 

• See the Psych. Rev., Vol IX, pp. 138 fif. » Op. cit. 

* See the Am. Phys. Ed. Rev., Vol. IV, pp. 20 ff. 



ACTIVITY AS REQUIRING EXPENDITURE OF ENERGY 1 83 

time, his interest in the test, his general bodily condition, 
and the hke. So studies upon pupils with the aesthesi- 
ometer must be regarded as only suggestive in a very 
general way.^ 

Binet and Henri, and numerous other investigators, 
have studied the influence of intellectual work and of 
fatigue upon vital function, as measured by the sphyg- 
mograph and other instruments working on the same 
general principle. They have studied the influence of 
intellectual work upon circulation, for instance, as shown 
in the number of pulsations, the volume of blood in the 
brain, the volume of blood in the hand, the pressure of 
the blood, and the dicrotism, or double action, of the 
pulse beat. In the same way they have studied the influ- 
ence of intellectual work upon respiration as indicated 
by the rapidity of respiration, the amplitude of respira- 
tion, the amount of carbonic acid gas expired, and the 
amount of oxygen gas absorbed. They have further 
investigated the relation between intellectual work and 
the temperature of the body, and the exchanges nutritijs. 
The results of these investigations are of great service as 
showing an intimate relation between mental activity 
and nervous and vital function, but they have not yet been 
made detailed or definite with respect to the question of 
fatigue. We have gained practically nothing from this 

^ See Binet and Henri, op. cit., pp. 320-321, for a statement of the me- 
chanical difficulties attending the use of the aesthesiometer. 



184 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

source regarding the amount of intellectual work children 
of different ages may safely undertake, how long should 
be the school year and the daily sessions, whether some 
studies dissipate vital force more rapidly than others, and 
so on. 

Thus far we have noticed only the more distinctly 
physical methods of studying the course of power, and we 
must now mention the strictly mental tests. There are 
four favorite tests that have been largely used by Gikor- 
sky,^ Burgerstein,^ Ebbinghaus,^ Hopfner,* Friedrich,^ 
Binet and Henri,' and several investigators in our own 
country, as Holmes,' for example. There are the number 
tests, wherein pupils are required to add, multiply, and 
divide series of numbers at various hours during the day, 
after given periods of mental apphcation, after inter- 
mission, and so on. The rapidity and accuracy of the 
work done are studied, and the results charted, to see if 
there is any tendency toward increase or decrease holding 
for the majority of pupils. Then there is the dictation 
test, where numbers, letters, or literary selections are 
dictated to pupils at various times during the day, and the 

* See Binet and Henri, op. cit., p. 288. 

' See the Zeit. fur Schulgesundheitspflege, 1891. 

* See Zeit. jur Physch. u. Phys. d. Sinn, Vol. XIII, pp. 401 ff. 

♦ Ibid., Vol. VI, pp. 191 ff. 

• Ibid., Vol. XIII, pp. I ff. 

• Op. cit., "Deuxieme Partie," Chap. II. 
'' Fed. Sem., Vol. Ill, pp. 213 ff. 



ACTIVITY AS REQUIRING EXPENDITURE OF ENERGY 1 85 

rapidity and accuracy of the work studied. So there is 
a memory test, and a test wherein the pupil is required 
to fill in omissions in a literary selection, so that the sense 
is preserved. We shall in the appropriate place see what 
results have been reached by these different methods, 
but it should be noted here that there are disturbing factors 
which make it unwise to place too great confidence in 
these results. What Binet and Henri call ennui may and 
probably does affect seriously the response of pupils after 
the novelty of the tests has worn off. Then the person- 
ality of the investigator will determine the attitude of the 
pupils, and influence the vigor of their attack upon their 
tasks. Thus a variety of factors may contribute to deter- 
mine the results of any experiment when the investigator 
may ascribe all the results to but one factor. 

So it can be seen from this hasty glance at methods of 
investigation that fatigue in the true sense is not easily 
measured, and what often passes therefor may be really 
something quite different. We may not find it possible, 
then, to speak positively and in much detail respecting the 
precise amount of school work which should be required of 
pupils ; but there is one matter of great practical impor- 
tance, and concerning which we may speak with much 
definiteness, — the waste of nervous energy through ill- 
suited experiences. It will probably be agreed to by 
every one that life is growing constantly more complex, 
and an individual must be more effective than ever if he 



l86 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

would become adapted to his environments. This means 
that he will need to generate more energy than his ances- 
tors did, and not expend it without profitable issue. 
Education, then, must be as economical as possible of a 
pupil's energies ; and to point out methods of accomplish- 
ing this will be the purpose of the following chapters. 

TOPICS FOR INVESTIGATION AND DISCUSSION 

1. Have you observed in your own case that vigorous or 
prolonged intellectual activity influences the circulation of the 
blood? Does it increase blood pressure in one region and 
reduce it in others ? Be specific respecting the evidences upon 
which your answer is based. 

2. Observe carefully pupils in different grades of the school; 
is there any way you can tell "with the naked eye" whether 
intense intellectual activity augments the volume of blood in 
the cephalic regions? 

3. Discuss this proposition: People have always realized 
that an individual possesses a limited supply of energy which 
may be exhausted by excessive work, either mental or physical. 
What are the evidences that the people you know entertain 
such a conception of human nature ? 

4. What is the distinction between these terms: weari- 
ness; fatigue; exhaustion? 

5. Could a pupil be "tired" of any task, and yet not be 
fatigued? How can you tell whether a pupil is fatigued or 
only afflicted with ennui? 

6. Have you ever observed pupils who appeared weary or 
fatigued, but who brightened up and attacked their lesson 



ACTIVITY AS REQUIRING EXPENDITURE OF ENERGY 1 87 

vigorously when different methods were employed by the 
teacher? Illustrate with particular instances. 

7. Take a school, at 11 145 a.m., say, in which the pupils 
are working slowly and making many errors; mention all the 
factors that may possibly be the cause of this unhappy condition. 

8. In the light of your own observation and experience, 
point out the merits and the defects of the various methods of 
investigating fatigue mentioned in the text. 

9. What do you think would be the value for scientific or 
practical purposes of asking pupils if they felt weary or fatigued ? 

10. Describe any reliable and practicable test for fatigue 
which a teacher could make as a part of her regular daily exer- 
cises. Be certain that it will be a test for fatigue, and not 
other factors and conditions. 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE INFLUENCE OF FATIGUE ^ ON THE EFFICmNCY OF 
MIND AND BODY 

We are coming to conceive of the central nervous 
system, from one point of view, as a reservoir of energy 
which may be employed in carrying on the activities 
aUke of body and of mind. Now when one's nervous 
resources are expended in the support of particular activ- 
ities, other activities must be neglected. To illustrate, 
when one spends himself in extraordinarily hard muscu- 
lar labor, he is usually less keen and vigorous in his men- 
tal processes; and the reverse seems also to be true. 
Again, when one's energies are utilized in repairing the 
ravages of disease, he is unable to expend much force, 
relatively speaking, in the accomplishment of either 
physical or mental tasks. 

Investigators, such as Mosso,^ Lombard,^ Maggi- 

' I shall use the term fatigue in the sense in which it is used by Mosso, 
Binet and Henri, and most other students of the subject. Woodworth 
(the Psych. Rev., Vol. IX, p. i8i) uses it to denote a more serious de- 
pletion of nervous energy, amounting to exhaustion. It would seem 
desirable to keep the latter term for the extreme forms of fatigue. 

2 "tJber die Gesetze der Ermiidung," Archiv jur Phys. (DuBois 
Reymond.) Hefts, I, II, 1890. 

' " Some of the Influences which Affect the Power of Voluntary Mus- 
cular Contractions," Journ. oj Phys., Vol. XIII, pp. i, 58. 

188 



THE INFLUENCE OF FATIGUE 1 89 

ora/ Kraeplin,^ Bryan,^ and many others have studied ex- The effect of 

fatigue on 

perimentally the effect of excessive work of various sorts mutcuiar 

action. 

upon intellectual and motor action, and we may sum- 
marize in this chapter what appears to be the best estab- 
lished and most practical results of their researches. To 
begin with, excessive work lessens the force and reduces 
the rapidity of muscular action ; * and this, according to 
Mosso,^ is no doubt to be accounted for in part by the 
fact that what we are wont to call muscular fatigue is in 
truth largely central or nervous fatigue. It has been 
shown that when a subject under experiment is made 
to exert as much force as he can by means of the hand 
grip on a dynamometer, say, until his muscles appear 
to be entirely depleted, they may then be stimulated by 
electricity to act with about as much vigor as they did 
at the start, indicating that they are still in working con- 
dition; and after a period of stimulation in this way, 
the will of the subject remaining at rest, he can again 
voluntarily energize his biceps, as is indicated in Figs. 
7 and 8 on following page. 
This principle in its general bearings is often recog- 

• "ijber die Gesetze der Ermiidung. Untersuchungen an Muskeln 
des Menschen," Archiv jur Anat. und Phys. (DuBois Reymond.) 
Physiologic, 1890, pp. 89-243. 

2 "A Measure of Mental Capacity," Pop. Sci. Mo., Vol. XLIX, p. 756. 
8 "The Development of Voluntary Motor Ability," Am. Journ. of 
Psych., Vol. V, pp. T23 ei seq. 

* Cf. Bergstrom, Am. Journ. oj Psych., Vol. VI, p. 265. 
^ "Fatigue," p. 243. 



190 



THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 




-ihwL_ 



Fig. 7. — Showing ergographic tracings, (i) in voluntary effort, (2) in elec- 
trical stimulation of nerve, (3) in electrical stimulation of muscle. (Scrip- 
ture.i after Mosso.) The relative heights of the tracings represent the 
relative amounts of energy expended in the several forms of stimulation. 
It can be seen that in voluntary effort the subject gradually loses power of 
exertion and is soon unable to exert any force whatever ; but if at this point 
a nerve leading to the muscle which has been acting (in this instance the 
middle finger was exercised) be excited by electricity, the tracings show 
that the muscle is as vigorous as ever. The fatigue in the voluntary effort 
must then have been central or nervous. Again, if when action ceases 
from nerve excitation the muscle be directly stimulated there is once more 
a return of power, indicating that the muscle itself fatigues much more 
slowly than the nervous mechanism concerned in voluntary effort. 













K 


LOS 

-8 












Im 


lima 


iSli* 


Uliw 


vtfi^tM^ 


SECONDS 























Fig. 8 shows the rhythm in the fatigue of voluntary effort (Scripture 2). At F 
is shown a period when the subject could exert no force whatever, although 
he earnestly endeavored to. Soon after this space of paralysis, however, 
there is a return of ability again for a brief time. These tracings were ob- 
tained upon the dynamometer by means of the hand grip. 



1 " The New Psychology," p. 231. 
3 Hid., p. 229. 



THE INFLUENCE OF FATIGUE 



191 



nized practically in every-day experience, particularly 
in the training of athletes. It is well known that their 
physical vigor and endurance depend in great degree 
upon their mental condition (see Fig. 9), or, as the saying 
goes, upon their "nerve." They are expected during 
the season of training to secure an abundance of food 




Fig. 9 shows the effect of mental work upon the power of contraction of the 
finger at various hours of the day. (Mosso, loc. cit.') The first curve, 
from A to B, indicates the amount of work which could be done at 9 A.M. 
From 2 P.M. until 5.30 P.M. the subject was under great mental strain 
while conducting an examination in the university. After the examination, 
at 5.45 P.M., the curve from C to Z> was gained. The first contraction of 
the finger shows as much power as in the morning, but the energy is soon 
exhausted. Then after supper, at about 7.30 P.M., the curve from E 
to /^ was taken, and it indicates a slight increase in the endurance of energy. 
Finally, at 9 P.M., the fourth curve was made, showing a slow recovery of 
original power. 

and sleep, and to abstain from dissipation so as to keep 
the nervous system in thorough repair. People often 
say that when they have been greatly frightened, or after 
a severe mental strain of any sort, they are "weak in the 
knees." They can exert but httle muscular force of 
any sort at such a time. After a hard day in the school- 



192 



THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 



Effect of 
fatigue on 
motor co- 
ordination. 



room teachers are often disinclined to engage in any 
physical activities; they feel "tired," they say, though 
they have not been using their muscles at all. It is the 
brain that is "tired" in such cases, and so it is unable 
to stimulate the muscles to vigorous action. 

One manifestation of fatigue very much in evidence in 
the daily life of children, as I have observed them, is the 
inability to perform intricate motor tasks, such as fine 
sewing or writing, for instance. The explanation is 
doubtless found in the fact, already referred to, that 
particular cerebral areas have special control of partic- 
ular motor activities, one area having charge of the 
coarser coordinations, as walking, hammering, and the 
like, while other and "higher" areas have special control 
of more peripheral and complex movements. These 
last areas may be regarded as the coordinating mechan- 
isms, par excellence, of the nervous system.^ Now, in 
fatigue, as in intoxication or brain disease, these areas 
seem to be generally affected first, because they are the 
most unstable; and nervous depletion will then be mani- 
fested early in relative inabihty to execute very precise 
or elaborate coordinations. 

This is responsible for much of what in the school- 
room is called "carelessness," one of those terms which 
denote a lack of critical analysis, grouping, and inter- 



* This conception is worked out in detail in Mercier's " The Nervous 
System and the Mind," Chaps. III-VI. 



THE INFLUENCE OF FATIGUE 1 93 

pretation of phenomena. A pupil in a condition of 
fatigue who tries to write with a fine-pointed pen, for 
instance, is likely to make many blunders. He will 
blot his copy book, perhaps, or get his fingers inky, or 
make ragged lines, and so on, when ordinarily he could 
avoid these disasters. Servants, as I think I have ob- 
served, break more dishes at night, after a hard day's 
work, than at any other time. I have noted particularly 
that kindergarten children kept too long at stringing 
beads or fine weaving or sewing grow "careless," and 
make little headway. Many people have the experience 
that when they are fatigued ^ from any cause the voice 
becomes unsteady, the hand trembles, and the whole 
motor mechanism seems to be "going to pieces." 

Warner ^ ascribes this want of precision, which is 
simply incoordination carried to a point where it becomes 
noticeable, to the spasmodic functioning of nerve cells 
in a condition of fatigue. The inhibitory processes 
are less effective; but inhibition is absolutely essential 
for fine, exact work of any considerable degree of com- 

* It needs to be emphasized that to be "tired" is not of necessity to be 
fatigued. One may be tired or weary from sitting still, or listening to an 
uninteresting lecture, or waiting for some event to happen, but he may 
not be fatigued, for he may have a good stock of energy on hand to be 
expended in activity when the opportunity is presented. When one is 
fatigued it means that he has actually expended a large part of his avail- 
able energy. Cf. MacDougall, Psych. Rev., March, 1899. 

* "The Study of Children," pp. 52 et seq. 

o 



194 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

plexity.^ The Hughlings- Jackson theory ^ accounts for 
the phenomenon here in question by hypothesizing that 
the coordinating areas in the brain are unable to act 
with accustomed authority, and movements result which 
are not so fully under the direction of the will.^ 
But whatever the neurological explanation may be, it 
is enough for practical purposes to recognize that the 
exhaustion of nerve centers results in lessened power 
of exact and sustained coordination. 
Fatigue pro- Again, many people when in a fatigued condition find 

duces tension. 

that they become tense, rigid, constrained. Their lips 
become compressed, their fists clenched, and so on. And 
then they grow "restless" in order to release the tension. 
Nature teaches one to do this in order to relieve the strain 
on the central nervous system. When one's muscles are 
needlessly tense he is wasting energy that should be 
conserved. If I should keep my fists, say, tightly clenched 
for an hour, a good deal of energy would be drawn off 
from nervous centers.* It is highly important then that 
one should rid himself of useless tensions, and nature 
prompts him to do this more or less unconsciously. One 
may go into a certain type of schoolroom at half-past 

' See Chaps. II and V of this volume. 

"^ See Anderson, in Hack Tuke's " Dictionary of Psychological Medi- 
cine," Vol. I, pp. 440 et seq., for a discussion of Hughlings- Jackson's 
theory, which seems now to be accepted by practically all physicians. 

* Cf. Scripture, "The New Psychology," pp. 228 et seq. 

* Cf. Woodworth, Psych. Rev., Vol. IX, p. 183. 



THE INFLUENCE OF FATIGUE I95 

eleven in the morning, or thereabouts, after the children 
have been working for two or three hours, and find them 
moving about constantly, without any motive so far as 
one can tell. Every teacher must be famihar with this 
malady, the bete noire of many a schoolroom. I have 
known situations of this sort that have been remedied 
effectually by giving pupils a five-minute recess, or a half- 
hour for luncheon. 

Of course, people differ in their capacity to hold out Leaky nerv- 
ous syBtems. 
against fatigue. Professor Bryan ^ has said that some 

persons possess leaky nervous systems, wherefrom energy 
flows away without issue in useful results. In such 
individuals activity will be Hkely to be in excess of that 
which the stimulus occasioning it should normally pro- 
duce. Every one must have seen children, and adults 
as well, who when they hear a shght noise, for instance, 
which others do not mind, react out of all reason in jump- 
ing or screaming; or when spoken to unexpectedly their 
faces flush, their lips quiver, — in short they lose control 
of themselves in a measure. Such persons are unduly 
profligate in the expenditure of their means, and, in 
consequence, their capital is relatively soon exhausted.' 
The writer recently conducted some experiments 
upon school children which yielded results that appear 
to confirm the view here set forth. Scripture's steadi- 

^ Add. and Proc. of the N. E. A., 1897, p. 279. 

2 Cf. Warner, " The Study of Children," Chaps. VIII-IX. 



196 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

ness gauge was used in one test. This is designed to 
investigate stability of control by requiring a person to 
direct a light rod under guidance of the eye upon a point 
several feet distant, failure to accompUsh this being 
announced by the ringing of an electric bell. The sub- 
ject is usually required to make the trial fifteen times 
at a single test, and the number of successful attempts 
is taken to be, in a way, although it is not always reliable, 
an index to his power of motor control. But more im- 
portant than the success or failure in accompUshing the 
task is the evidence it affords of the nervous condition 
of the subject as revealed in the by-product of his actions, 
so to speak. Tests were made in the morning, shortly 
following the opening of school, and again at half-past 
eleven o'clock, or thereabouts, after the pupils had been 
working over their lessons for about two hours. 

One boy of eleven years, A. M., is a fair illustration of 
what might not inappropriately be called a wasteful 
type. In the morning tests he was well controlled and 
accurate. But a record of five tests made at half-past 
eleven all show that after four or five attempts to place 
the rod upon the point his hand became unsteady, his 
lips compressed, the region about his eyes showed tension, 
and the hand not being used was tightly clenched. Ten 
trials were usually sufficient to produce twitchings in 
the face and body, although nothing of this sort was 
noticed at other times. This boy invariably made hard 



THE INFLUENCE OF FATIGUE 197 

work of the midday task, and all the physical accompani- 
ments indicated excessive motor stimulation following, 
apparently, upon an unduly active condition of nerve 
cells. At the close of the experiments he generally seemed 
exhausted, and upon three occasions it was thought 
best not to permit him to make the entire fifteen trials. 
Another pupil, W. R., two years younger, illustrates The thrifty 

type. 

a different type. In the morning trials he was no better 
than A. M., but he, too, was subjected to five different 
tests at half-past eleven, with the result that he could, in 
every instance, complete the test without any apparent 
fatigue. There was no constraint apparent in the face 
or hands, no unusual effort to coordinate the muscles 
of the body, and no twitchings of any kind. Now, it 
seems probable that in the case of W. R. the brain was 
able to adjust effort in right degree to the needs of the 
occasion, while with A. M. there was such prodigahty 
in the expenditure of energy in various irrelevant motor 
tensions and activities that it was soon largely spent. 
A. M. showed this tendency to nervous extravagance 
in all the work of the school. While an unusually bright 
boy, he yet became fatigued in the performance of duties 
that W. R. could discharge with no evidence of over- 
strain.^ Indeed, the latter boy seemed never to reach 

• Since these tests were made I have had opportunity to observe two 
brothers who are good illustrations of the types described above. They 
are both in school ; but one is intense in all he does — he is " high-strung," 



198 



THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 



a point beyond which he could not go with safety if he 
chose. 

Further illustrations of this principle of individual 
differences in the conservation of nervous energy were 
afforded by another simple experiment. The appara- 
tus employed consisted of a plate of smoked glass set in 
a frame so that it could be moved horizontally. Just 
touching the glass, and adjusted to it by a deUcate spring, 
was a fine metal point which could be maintained at any 
height by a silk thread to be held in the fingers of the 
subject to be experimented upon, who stood with closed 
eyes endeavoring to keep his hand perfectly c^iet for 
one-half a minute. During the test the glass was moved 
slowly in the frame, the metal point thus tracing a line 
which was an index of the steadiness of the subject's 
hand. Five sets of experiments were made upon a num- 
ber of pupils in the morning soon after the opening of 
the school, and again just before the noon recess. 

The accompanying tracings. Fig. 10, are reproductions 
of those gained at one of the tests, and are typical ex- 
amples. The first two were secured from a girl, M. L. R., 
eleven years of age. The one made at half-past eleven, 
after two and a quarter hours' work in school, shows a 
significant phenomenon which could be easily witnessed 



his teachers say, and he very often is in a nervous, uncontrolled con- 
dition before the day is over. His brother goes on from day to day 
doing his work without any apparent strain. 



THE INFLUENCE OF FATIGUE 



199 



during the short period of the experiment. One could 
observe her arm and fingers contracting, which accounts 
for the upward direction of the tracing. The body 
swayed almost to the point of faUing, the fingers of the 
hand not employed were clenched, and all her expressions 



M.L.R- 



9:15 o'clock 




E.H5 



9:15 o'clock 




9:15 o'clock 




M.R 



Fig. 10. — Tracings showing the different effects of mental labor upon pupils, 
as explained in the text. 

indicated tension. The second set of tracings, gained 
from a girl, E. H., twelve years of age, shows evidences 
of fatigue after a few hours' work; but the effect upon 
the motor activities is quite in contrast with that of the 
case just mentioned. Here there was relaxation of the 



200 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

muscles, a general letting down, revealed in the tracings 
taking an abrupt descent. The third group of tracings 
was gained from W. R., whose characteristics have al- 
ready been alluded to, and who indicated here, as in 
other tests, that his morning's duties had had no serious 
effect upon his nervous condition. 

Thus far I have been speaking of the influence which 
fatigue exerts upon motor abilities. But the harm done 
here is probably not so great as that sustained by the 
mental faculties. To begin with, attention becomes 
less concentrated and enduring than when one is in good 
neural form, so to speak. Any person who has endeav- 
ored to apply himself to arduous tasks when his resources 
have been too heavily taxed, knows that it is with great 
difficulty he can hold his mind to the thing in hand, and 
he is hkely to fail altogether in the attempt. As James 
has said,^ one grasps at everything in order to find rehef 
from the object before him. At this time there crowd 
into the mind irrelevant ideas, which in seasons of mental 
vigor one can keep out. And the upshot of the matter 
is that distraction ensues. The mind grows inaccurate, 
wandering here and there in an aimless way, and one 
finally reaches a stage of stupidity. In fatigue it is prob- 
able that the motor coordinations involved in attend- 
ing to a given idea can be sustained but for a relatively 
short period, and when they begin to disintegrate another 
* "Psychology: Briefer Course," p. 225. 



THE INFLUENCE OF FATIGUE 20I 

system of coordinations comes to the front only to soon 
meet the fate of the first one, and so it goes.* 

If, then, in fatigue attentive attitudes can be maintained 
but for relatively brief periods, it is not difficult to fore- 
see the result on mental efficiency. A chaotic mind can- 
not exhibit keenness, readiness, or accuracy in any of 
its operations. We w^ould expect, in the first place, that 
perception would be less discriminating, and this has 
been corroborated by extensive investigations upon the 
several senses.^ The writer has tested this matter in the 
public schools, and the results are in accord with the 
general conclusions reached by KraepHn, Biirgerstein, 
Ebbinghaus, and others, after more elaborate studies, 
to which reference has been made. Pupils were required 
upon three successive days, at half-past nine o'clock and 
again at half-past eleven in the morning, to trisect a line 
three inches long. The results show that on the average 
they were several millimeters nearer correct in the morn- 
ing trisections than in those just before the midday recess. 
It seems that this test measured in a way the degree of 
attention which pupils were able to exert at different 

* See, for an interesting discussion of the effect of fatigue on attention, 
Mosso, "Fatigue," Chap. VIII. 

* See, for the results of some investigations: Gilbert, " Studies upon 
School Children in New Haven," in Studies from the Yale Psych. Lab., 
Vol. II; Sinclair, "Schoolroom Fatigue," Educational Foundations, 
May and June, 1896; Dresslar, "Fatigue," Fed. Sent., June, 1892, 
Vol. II, pp. 102-106; O'Shea, "When Character is Formed," 
Pop. Sci. Mo., Sept., 1897. 



202 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

hours during ^he day, and it confirms what one who 
observes the work of any pupil closely will be hkely to 
see very frequently, — that six hours' work in school 




Fig. II.— The "Tone Tester." 

The fan-shaped plate A is supported by a handle beneath it. The pipe B, fas- 
tened to A, contains a vibrating reed whose length is regulated by a tightly 
sliding clamp, the projecting rod of which is shown at C. This clamp is 
moved by a lever whose long arm D, with the handle E, extends out over 
the plate. It is readily seen that, for each different position of the point 
of the long arm, the vibrating reed will have a different length, and the tone 
produced will be different in pitch. It is also evident that a small differ- 
ence in pitch corresponds to a large movement of the point of the long 
arm. — Gilbert. 

reduces the vigor of attention. Again, children were 
asked to sort colored yarns, to distinguish tones made 
by the tone tester (Fig. ii) and the same effect of fatigue 



THE INFLUENCE OF FATIGUE 203 

on attention was observed. Thoughtful teachers must 
notice that it is more of a task to hold the thoughts of 
students to the subject in hand at half-past eleven than 
at half-past nine ; and if recitations in hard studies occur 
late in the forejioon, progress will be slow and frequent 
mistakes will be made, probably because pupils are un- 
able to attend vigorously/ 
Now, if a pupil cannot coordinate himself fully upon a one cause of 

dullness in 

thing to be dealt with, his mental processes will all be the school- 
room and out- 
affected unfavorably thereby. He will be unable to per- side. 

ceive accurately, or recall fully or speedily what has for- 
merly been mastered ; and, most serious of all, he will be 
unable to view complex objects or ideas in such detail as 
to discover their deeper relationships — that is, he will be 
deficient in reasoning power. In fatigue, then, one's mind 
loses its tone and its stability. Suppose a fatigued pupil 
in school working over his spelling lesson, for instance ; he 
will be liable to make errors both in copying from the 
board and in reproducing what he already knows. In 
recitations in history, memory will be halting; what has 
apparently been made secure some time before may now 
be out of reach.^ In those studies requiring reflection, as 

' Cf. the following: Kotelmann, "School Hygiene," Chaps. VII, 
VIII; Shaw, "School Hygiene," Chap. XI; Kiilpe, "Outlines of Psy- 
chology," p. 43; Leuba, Psych. Rev., Vol. VI, p. 573; Germann, Psych. 
Rev., Vol. VI, p. 599. 

^ As Ribot says: "Fatigue in every shape is fatal to memory. The 
impressions received at such times are not fixed, and the reproduction of 



204 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

arithmetic, grammar, geography, and the hke, the rea- 
soner will be unable to hold his thoughts continuously to 
the matters under consideration, and so will be unable to 
detect subtle connections. 

One may frequently hear those about him say some- 
thing hke the following: "I derive much greater benefit 
from visiting an art gallery in the morning than at five 
o'clock in the afternoon ; " or " I find more pleasure in go- 
ing out into the fields and coming in contact with nature 
in the morning hours than later in the day, for I see more, 
or at least I appreciate more. Everything has a meaning 
for me now which is not so apparent at other times. There 
are details and harmonies in sound, color, and form which 
I apprehend when I am refreshed but which I miss when 
my mind is tired." And the rationale of this seems evi- 
dent. It is not that there is less of beauty and richness in 
nature in the late hours of the day, nor that the visual or 
auditory sense organs are incapable of receiving stimula- 
tions therefrom, but it is due most largely to fatigue of the 
central nervous system, which disturbs the processes of 
interpretation of the stimuh that are received. Again, 
when we are fatigued we reahze that we must defer the 
consideration of difficult matters until a more favorable 
period, when mental freshness has been regained. We 

them is very laborious and often impossible. . . . When the normal 
conditions are restored memory comes back again." " Diseases of Mem- 
ory," Chap. V. Cf. Mosso, op. cit., p. 200. 



THE INFLUENCE OF FATIGUE 205 

attack our mathematical problems in the morning rather 
than at five o'clock in the afternoon. Even social custom 
has recognized this and has assigned the later hours of 
the day to occupations and pastimes requiring relatively 
little concentration.^ 
Fatigue has a similar effect in principle upon the emo- The effect of 

fatigue on 

tional as upon the motor and intellectual activities. Many ^^^ emotions, 
people are aware of this, and they freely condone the bad 
temper of individuals at certain seasons because of their 
"tired" condition. It will surely impress one who has 
never thought of the matter to observe how, in a siege of 
neurasthenia, antisocial qualities, as irritabihty, jealousy, 
hatred, anger, and the like take possession of an individual 
who in better times is well poised and not too conscious 
of himself in relation to others about him.^ I have for a 
number of years been making some notes on the daily 
lives of several children, and over and over again I find 
statements like this: "S. did not sleep well last night, and 
seems irritable and unhappy to-day;" "B. has played 
very hard all day, is fatigued to-night, and it is difficult 
to get on with him. He has lost his usual fine control and 
happy way with people"; "H. has not been quite herself 

* Thorndike {Psych. Rev., Vol. VII, p. 479) mentions the following 
as among the most prominent effects of fatigue, — slowness and inaccuracy 
of association, lack of inhibition, irrelevant ideas, mental confusion, im- 
pulses to stop work, purposive trains of thought interfered with by feelings 
of ennui. 

* Cf. Mosso, op. cit., p. 238. 



2o6 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

the past week or so, — she is taking little food, and has 
been much excited. She is not pleased with the things 
which ordinarily give her pleasure, and she complains 
much and cries easily;" "H. is more irritable and 
uncontrolled when she plays with certain nervous chil- 
dren than when she is left alone, or plays with quieter 
children." And similar instances might be cited at any 
length. 

It has already been pointed out that in a state of fatigue 
the nerve cells are unstable, giving off energy — exploding 
as it were — without sufficient cause. ^ A person who 
when refreshed and vigorous would be able to inhibit im- 
pulses to anger, or quick words, or passion of any sort, 
would probably in a state of fatigue lose this power, at 
least in a measure. That is, fatigue in most instances les- 
sens one's inhibitory power and then he reacts upon stim- 
uli without, as we say, dehberation or consideration. It 
is maintained, too, by Dresslar and others, that fatigue pro- 
duces a melancholy, depressed feehng ; causes one to turn 
his thoughts in upon himself, and to become morbid and 
gloomy if this self- consciousness is long continued. Fur- 
ther, it is the opinion of those who have had large experi- 
The benumb- ence with such matters that those qualities of character 

ing of the 

highest which are described by the terms "vicious" or "criminal" 

faculties 

in fatigue. are due to perverted feelings dependent upon impaired 

* Compare Swift, " Sensibility to Pain," Am.Journ. of Psych., Vol. XI, 
No. 3, April, 1900; and Reprint. 



THE INFLUENCE OF FATIGUE 207 

physical conditions, especially of the nervous system/ It 
has become a maxim that a man in a state of hunger is 
much harder to govern than when he is w^ell nourished. 
*'How many tempers," says Stanley Hall,^ "have been 
spoiled simply by fatigue ! It is hard to be good-natured 
when you are tired, and so very easy to be good-tempered 
when you are all in good condition." Untruthfulness, 
which Kant has called the negation of self, is generally a 
characteristic of an individual who has not vigor enough 
to face boldly the consequences of his acts. It would 
doubtless be within bounds to say that in general one who 
is physically weak, who is nervously depleted, is usually, 
although perhaps not always, morally weak. 

Campbell,^ in discussing the tendency for one afflicted 
with nervous disease of any kind to become the creature of 
egoistic emotions, makes a point which will be in place 
here. "We frequently find," he says, "emotions hke fear 
and anger, which we have in common with the brutes, 
accompanying the shghter disorders of the nervous sys- 
tem. In this connection one calls to mind the condition 
of a hungry man jaded with a hard day's work; until re- 
freshed by food and drink he is apt to be irritable, to break 

* See Collin, Papers in Penology, 1891, pp. 27-28; alsoWey, in same, 
pp. 57-69; Wright, Am. Journ. oj Neurology and Psychiatry^ Vols. II- 
III, pp. 135 et seq. 

^ Primary Education, Vol. XI, p. 216. 

• " Differences in the Nervous Organization of Man and Woman," 
p- 301- 



2o8 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

out wrathfuUy, and this irritability is no doubt related to 
the savageness of the hungry animal, a condition of mind 
often necessary to the successful struggle for food." 

TOPICS FOR INVESTIGATION AND DISCUSSION 

1. Many people believe that when a boy is lazy his will is 
lethargic, and it should be aroused by dermal stimulation. 
May there be a physiological cause of laziness ? 

2. Have you ever been so "fagged out" that you could 
hardly "drag yourself around"? Was the source of the diffi- 
culty, probably, in the muscles or in the nervous system? 
How can one tell where it was ? 

3. Children often come home from school, and feel utterly 
indisposed to engage in games or plays or work of any sort. 
They may throw themselves on a sofa, and remain inactive 
for hours at a time. What is probably the source of the diffi- 
culty in such cases ? 

4. When one starts up suddenly and vigorously any activity, 
as running, he is Hkely in due course to come almost to a halt; 
but if he keeps striving to continue he will probably find that 
his power will return gradually. Explain. 

5. Do schoolroom errors, due to "carelessness," so-called, 
occur most frequently at certain times in the day or the week, 
or the year ? If so, what is the explanation ? 

6. Ask pupils to reproduce, in as precise a manner as pos- 
sible, a copy of considerable length and complexity at hour 
intervals during the day. Then study the reproductions with 
a magnifying glass, and note whether they grow more or less 
precise as the day progresses. What factors may produce 
any change you observe? 



THE INFLUENCE OF FATIGUE SOQ 

7. At what periods during the day are school children 
most restless? Why? 

8. Describe simple methods, practicable in the schoolroom, 
of ascertaining individual dififerences in the matter of fatigue. 
How can you use this information to advantage when you 
obtain it? 

g. Are there certain hours during the day when you find 
it relatively quite difficult to attend to your studies? Ex- 
plain. What success do you have in mastering your tasks at 
such times? 

10. Have you observed that people incHned to be irritable 
give way to their passions more especially at particular times 
during the day or week or year ? What is the explanation ? 



CHAPTER XIV 

ECONOMY IN THE EXPENDITURE OF ENERGY 

It is recognized in mechanics that a large part of the 
energy expended in the working of a machine is wasted; 
a relatively small amount, say 25 per cent, in the best ma- 
chines is devoted to accomplishing the purposes for which 
the machine operates. The more perfectly a machine can 
be constructed, so as to save this waste, the more efficient 
it becomes, of course. Now, the human body is a sort of 
machine ; it has work to accompHsh and a given quota of 
energy which may be utihzed for this purpose. If one 
should maintain that it has been so carefully fashioned 
that there can be no loss of vital force, that all parts run 
together so smoothly and coordinate so nicely that there 
is no leakage anywhere, he would doubtless have a show 
of reason on his side. It would be a fortunate arrange- 
ment if this most intricate of all mechanisms could run of 
itself, without superintending, and without unnecessary 
outlay of energy. But it is probable that with the major- 
ity of us, on account of wasteful habits contracted in 
one way and another, there is dissipation of force by fric- 
tion, which can be reduced at least by a little deliberate 
planning. 



ECONOMY IN THE EXPENDITURE OF ENERGY 211 

One of the most important sources of waste is found in Loss in the 

human ma- 

muscular tensions which are not at all essential to the chine from 

muscular 

accomphshment of the piece of work in hand. The truth tensions, 
of this will be apparent when it is remembered that the 
exercise of a muscle involves stimulation from nerve cen- 
ters. This stimulation impHes a drain upon nerve cells, 
— useless expenditure of energy, that is to say. When 
any task, as writing, is to be undertaken, then, economy 
requires that if possible no muscles be active except such 
as are necessary to the execution of the task, or that fur- 
nish an outlet for excess energy, and it should be said that 
there is probably always some of this, at least when one 
is learning any new art. But take this case, a very com- 
mon one : An adult sits down to write a letter ; he takes 
his pen in his right hand, but the left hand becomes 
clenched, the hps compressed, deep furrows crease the 
forehead, and the fingers grasp the pen with excessive 
force. In such a case a considerable amount of energy 
is being expended without profit. The unnecessary ten- 
sions are draining the organism of force that should be 
conserved. 

It may, perhaps, be regarded as a commonplace to say Mental ten- 
that there are practices in school Ufe, as in the life out- muscular ten- 
side, which result in squandering energy, and which can 
probably be corrected without inducing too great self- 
consciousness. In the first place, mental tension readily 
begets muscular tension. When one is troubled in spirit ; 



212 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

when he discerns obstacles ahead that seem insuperable; 
when conscience is incessantly active, censuring one for 
past deeds and exhorting him to be especially careful in 
the future ; when Hfe seems full of cares that demand un- 
ceasing attention, — such a condition of mind produces 
all sorts of tensions and constraints which sap the organ- 
ism of its vitahties. When the attention is centered upon 
dangers ahead, the body unconsciously takes on an atti- 
tude of defense, as it were ; or, to be more precise, the or- 
ganism seeks to adapt itself to any situation pictured in 
imagination, as we say, and when we see an enemy cross- 
ing our path we make ready to annihilate him, or to be- 
take ourselves out of his reach. 

One may see on the street every day, people with rigid 
countenances, — deep Unes between the eyes, strain about 
the mouth, the body tense, inflexible. When you talk with 
such persons you can observe "nerve signs" in all the 
sensitive muscles of face, hands, and body generally. 
These are the people who are continually drawing too 
heavily upon their nerve accounts. Their outlay com- 
monly exceeds their income ; or at least there is never any 
large balance on the credit side of the account. Pupils 
sometimes sit in their seats in the schoolroom afraid of 
a savage teacher, and every moment their vital forces 
are being wasted. Or they may be filled with fear in 
the presence of some of their schoolmates or even of a 
parent; but no matter what may be the cause of dread 



ECONOMY IN THE EXPENDITURE OF ENERGY 213 

the result must prove disastrous. Whatever other sins you 

may commit, Mr. Pedagogue, do not add to the already 

heavy burdens of a timid pupil. 

There is a class of what might be called overconscien- The hypo- 
chondriac, 
tious individuals. They can never do anything without 

worrying about it before and afterwards. They are 
troubled lest they have not done or will not do just the 
right thing on all occasions. They belong to what Ribot 
would call the egoistic-introspective type; they cannot 
get away from themselves, and hence are constrained and 
tense in most of their activities. It seems to be a law of 
our human nature that turning the mind in upon self much 
throws the machinery of Ufe out of gear. Too much re- 
viewing of conscience, too much hunting after one's 
faults, ends in conscience being a very ineffective guide 
in life. Its mandates cannot be carried into effect by 
aweakened organism. 

So much has been said in recent years about "American- Americanitis. 
itis" that it may be mentioned in this connection. It is 
maintained by those who ought to know whereof they 
speak that our American people do not understand how 
to rest effectually; which means, as construed by some, 
that they make a great deal more fuss than is necessary 
about doing a thing. Their efforts are considerably in excess 
of that which particular occasions demand. When they 
undertake tasks that should employ the hands only they 
use the whole motor apparatus. They scowl and grit 



214 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

their teeth and stiffen their knees, and in other ways let 
go of energy they can ill afford to lose in this way. Dr. 
Clouston, the eminent Scotch authority upon nervous dis- 
eases, visited our country some time ago and is reported 
by James to have said: "You Americans wear too much 
expression upon your faces. You are Uving like an army 
with all its reserves engaged in action. The duller coun- 
tenances of the British population betoken a better scheme 
of life. They suggest stores of reserved nervous force to 
fall back upon, if any occasion should arise that requires 
it. This excitabiUty, this presence at all times of power 
not used, I regard as the greatest safeguard of our English 
people. The other thing in you gives me a sense of inse- 
curity, and you ought somehow to tone yourselves down. 
You really do carry too much expression, you take too 
intensely the trivial moments of hfe." 
Adjusting ef- It is a vitally important matter in every one's life, and 

fort to needs. 

especially in the early years when habits of economy or 
dissoluteness are being established, to get into the way of 
adjusting effort to the task to be accomplished. When 
great undertakings are to be handled our forces must all 
be summoned for action ; but it is nothing less than profli- 
gacy to expend as much on trifling as on momentous 
occasions. But how can one release these wasteful ten- 
sions ? Manifestly the first requisite is to change the men- 
tal attitudes which produce them. And first, one who 
keeps his shortcomings constantly before his mind's eye 



ECONOMY IN THE EXPENDITURE OF ENERGY 21 5 

pursues a very good course to dissipate his forces, for he 
cannot be looking inward all the time, inspecting his limi- 
tations and errors, without inducing strain and stress of 
mind and body. As Professor James says, the "melan- 
chohc patient is filled through and through with painful 
emotions about himself. He is threatened; he is guilty; 
he is doomed ; he is annihilated ; he is lost. His mind is 
fixed as if in a cramp on this sense of his own situation." * 
And unfortunately, the more one thinks of his failings the 
more securely do they fasten themselves upon him. He 
rises above his lower self mainly by filHng his mind with 
ideals outside of himself, so that he may grow up towards 
them. This is the only way, too, in which the machinery 
of life can be got to run smoothly ; which fact is evidenced 
constantly among the people we meet in daily life. 

One sees now and again a person who Hves an outward 
life. His mind is not upon himself much of the time; 
he does not question unendingly whether what he does is 
just right and proper, whether he ought not to have done 
something else; whether other people's actions are in- 
tended to injure him, and so on. His mind is full of 
interesting and worthy ends to be attained. Then, if 
we observe his reactions upon the world, we shall find that 
there is no scowling except when there is occasion for it ; 
no rigidity of features, no constraint and formality of 
bearing. Rather he is free and unconstrained in all his 
' Scribner's Magazine, April, 1899, p. 505. 



2l6 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

activities; the delicate mechanisms of his being work 
together harmoniously, and but little energy is expended 
except for the accompUshment of definite work. Much 
egoistic-introspective thinking seems to irritate the nervous 
system, unloosing forces which should be securely held 
until they can be profitably utiHzed. 

I can do no better here, I think, than to quote Pro- 
fessor James's advice ^ to those persons who are continually 
thinking about themselves: "If we wish our trains of 
ideation and volition to be copious and varied and effect- 
ive," he says, "we must form the habit of freeing them 
from the inhibitive influence of egoistic preoccupation 
about their results. Such a habit, like other habits, can 
be formed. Prudence and duty and self-guard, emotions 
of inhibition and emotions of anxiety, have, of course, 
a needful part to play in our fives. But confine them as 
far as possible to the occasions when you are making your 
general resolutions and deciding on your plans of campaign, 
and keep them out of the details. When once a decision 
is reached and execution is the order of the day, dismiss 
absolutely all responsibihty and care about the outcome. 
Unclamp, in a word, your intellectual and practical 
machinery and let it run free, and the service it will do 
you will be twice as good. Who are the scholars who get 
'rattled' in the recitation- room ? Those who think of 
the possibifities of failure and feel the great importance 

• Loc. cit. 



ECONOMY IN THE EXPENDITURE OF ENERGY 21 7 

of the act. Who are those who do recite well? Often 
those who are most indifferent. Their ideas reel them- 
selves out of their memory of their own accord. Why- 
do we hear the complaint so often that social Kfe in New 
England is either less rich and expressive or more fatigu- 
ing than it is in some other parts of the world ? To what 
is the fact, if fact it be, due, unless to the overactive 
conscience of the people, afraid of their saying something 
too trivial and obvious, or something insincere, or some- 
thing unworthy of one's interlocutor, or something in some 
way or other not adequate to the occasion? How can 
conversation possibly steer itself through such a sea of 
responsibihties and inhibitions as this? On the other 
hand, conversation does flourish and society is refreshing, 
and neither dull, on the one hand, nor exhausting from 
its effort on the other, wherever people forget their 
scruples and take the brakes off their hearts and let 
their tongues wag as automatically and irresponsibly as 
they will." 

While economical bodily attitudes and activities are The reflex 

effect of bod- 

generally insured by mental poise and wholesomeness, iiy attitudes, 
still something may be accomplished on the motor side 
by dehberately striving to let go of one's self occasionally. 
There is a good bit of sense in the Delsartean philosophy, 
which holds, first, that the most efficient individuals in 
intellect and character are those who are freest and most 
unconstrained in peripheral activities; and, second, that 



2l8 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

by proper exercise we may cultivate the power of "holding 
centers firm and releasing extremities." The Delsartean 
physical culture really helps ''bottled lightning" people 
to take themselves less seriously. There are so many 
persons, who, even when they rest, as they say, sit with 
clenched fists and rigid body, thus encouraging incessant 
drain on the nervous system. Let one who is conscious 
of unnecessary tenseness in his muscles voluntarily relax 
at certain times of the day as a matter of discipline. 
This will assist in relieving his nervous system; and in 
time he will find himself relaxing unconsciously, which 
James considers to be an imperative duty for the majority 
of American people. He will find, when he does this, 
that his mental brier-patch will not seem quite so thorny ; 
he will occupy a less prominent place in his own reflec- 
tions. For as ideas and feehngs find their way into 
motor actions, so motor attitudes influence the current of 
one's thought and feeling. Deliberately assume any 
given attitude and it will tend to awaken the emotion 
which usually initiates this attitude. Take on the out- 
ward manifestation of fear and fear is easily engendered ; 
while if one stands bravely against the world, courage 
will be strengthened.^ The sensory, central, and motor 

* Any teacher would be aided personally and professionally, I think, 
by reading Annie Payson Call's "Power through Repose." See also an 
article by the writer in the Atlantic Monthly, February, 1895, PP- 246-254. 

' In the words of Ribot : " It is less generally known that movements 
and attitudes of the body, artificially produced, are capable (in some 




ECONOMY IN THE EXPENDITURE OF ENERGY 219 

processes constituting any act are really a unity; they 
are phases of a whole. When 5 (Fig. 10) is acted upon 
by something in the world with- 
out, certain correlated ideas and 
emotions will appear in C, and 
these will set off correlated re- fig. 12.— Schema to iiius- 

, -■ 1 • 1 •HI- trate interdependence of 

sponses m M, which will bring ^^^^^^^^ ^^„j^,_ ^^^ 
the individual into desired adapt- •"°*°'" processes in all 

activity. 

ive relations with the obiect acting „ „ „ . 

•• " S — Sensory System. 

at S. And now, if we dehberately c— Central System. 

Af — Motor System. 

reinstate certain attitudes in M, 

we are likely to awaken the ideas and feehngs inseparably 
connected therewith; so that one who consciously puts 
himself into postures of repose and control may make a 
beginning in securing mental quietude. 

It seems to be a principle of our human nature that piayasa 

restorative. 

what we Kke to do is in general better for us than the 
things we hate. Pleasurable activities create less wear 

cases, and to a slighter degree) of exciting the corresponding emotions. 
Remain for some time in an attitude of sadness, and you will feel sad. 
By mingling in cheerful society and regulating your outward behavior in 
accordance with it, you may awaken in yourself a transient gayety. If 
the arm of a hypnotized subject is placed, with clinched fist, in a threat- 
ening attitude, the corresponding impression spontaneously appears in 
the face and in the rest of the body ; the same holds good for the expres- 
sions of love, prayer, contempt, etc. Here the movement is the cause 
and the emotion the effect. The two cases are reducible to a single 
formula. There is an indissoluble association between a given move- 
ment and a given feeling." — "The Psychology of the Emotions," p. 392. 



220 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

and tear than those which are distasteful/ an arrange- 
ment we should infer from the principles of evolution, 
even if we had no confirmatory experience with it in our 
own hves. Disagreeable tasks lie along the Hnes of greatest 
resistance for the organism, so a relatively larger amount 
of energy must be expended in overcoming them; while 
on the other hand, what is agreeable runs along ways of 
easy progress, and makes comparatively Httle demand 
upon our powers. 

This doctrine is of vital consequence in relation to our 
physical exercise. Games and plays and gymnastics 
which are pleasurable will accompHsh the purpose of 
recreation better than those which are indifferent or 
boresome.^ A game which will enlist our lively interest 
will do much more for us than formal drill which we have 

' Compare the following from Gallon: "We must be on our guard 
against estimating a man's energy too strictly by the work he accom- 
plishes, because it makes great difference whether he loves his work or 
not. A man with no interest is rapidly fagged. Prisoners are well 
nourished and cared for, but they cannot perform the task of an ill-fed 
and ill-housed laborer. Whenever they are forced to do more than their 
usual small amount, they show all the symptoms of being overtasked, 
and sicken. An army in retreat suffers in every way, while one in the 
advance, being full of hope, may perform prodigious feats." — "English 
Men of Science, their Nature and Nurture," p. 75. 

^ From the earliest times men have appreciated the transcendent value 
of play in the development of childhood and youth. See, for instance, 
Plato, "Laws," I, 643, and "Republic," VIII, 537; Aristotle, "Politics," 
Bk. VII, 17; Froebel, "Education of Man," Sec. 30; Locke in Quick's 
"Locke on Education," pp. 55, 76. 



ECONOMY IN THE EXPENDITURE OF ENERGY 221 

to coerce ourselves through. In other words, play, in the 
best sense of the term, whether in the gymnasium or out 
of doors, constitutes by all odds the most efficient method 
of exercise. It usually involves the various organs of the 
body and utihzes highly coordinated and complex ac- 
tivities, so that all parts of the motor mechanism of the 
brain are brought into action. "Man is wholly man only 
when he plays," Schiller says. On the other hand, 
formal drill ofttimes makes use of only a few movements 
and so stimulates but small portions of the cerebral 
motor areas.^ 
Again, so far as possible, the will should be released Exercise 

should not re- 
in physical exercise. This is accomphshed more largely quire voiun- 

in play than in drill which a pupil disHkes, as in marching 
or anything of the kind. Things which we hate we have 
to exert ourselves to overcome, but it is altogether different 
with those activities which draw us spontaneously. Ob- 
serve a boy at play and at work. The play may really 
be harder, in the sense that more work is done and more 

» Cf. the following: O'Shea, "Physical Culture in the Public Schools," 
Atlantic Monthly, February, 1895; Groos, "The Play of Man," Parts 
I, II ; Hughes, " Educational Value of Play, and the Recent Play Move- 
ment in Germany," Ed. Rev., Vol. XIII, pp. 327 etseq.: G. E. Johnson, 
"Education by Plays and Games," Fed. Sent., Vol. Ill, pp. 97-133; 
Earl of Meath, "Public Playgrounds for Children," Nineteenth Cen- 
tury, Vol. XXXTV, pp. 267 et seq.; Gulick, "Psychological, Pedagog- 
ical, and Religious Aspects of Group Games," Fed. Sem., Vol. XI, 
No. 2; and "Some Psychical Aspects of Muscular Exercises," Pop, 
Sci. Mo., Vol. LIII, pp. 793-805. 



222 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

difficult movements are performed, but yet his will is 
not exerting itself against obstacles and so he is really 
less fatigued over the heavier than the lighter task. And 
so it is with all of us ; we tire much more readily in per- 
forming tasks in which we have no interest. Economy 
an^ efficiency then demand that a pupil's physical exer- 
cises be genuinely pleasurable; that he go to them with- 
out having to drive himself. Recreation will in such a 
case accompUsh the purpose for which it is taken, rather 
than become an additional burden to an already over- 
taxed will. In order that recreation re-create it must 
refresh and not overtax; it must leave the individual 
with more power and spirit than he had when he began. 

Pupils and brain workers of every kind will probably 
be benefited more by activities requiring the greater use 
of the fundamental than the peripheral muscles. Gym- 
nastics and games, then, should not require too exact and 
deHcate coordinations, since it would seem that the 
school really demands enough of this sort of thing in the 
prosecution of the regular studies. The cerebral areas 
controUing the peripheral muscles are probably more 
largely involved in thinking, and it is desirable that our 
recreation should relieve these while calHng others into 
play. 

Again, it seems to me especially desirable that a pupil's 
or teacher's amusements should engage the muscles 
principally, rather than the mind. Cards, checkers, 



ECONOMY IN THE EXPENDITURE OF ENERGY 223 

chess, and the like must be poorly suited to the needs 
of those who use their brains constantly in their regular 
employments. Whist exercises the brain only, and the 
same is true of checkers, and most card games. A pu- 
pil's life economically planned would be so ordered that 
he would expend in study all of the energies which should 
be devoted to intellectual activities, while reaction would 
involve motor processes almost wholly. Pastimes, whether 
in- or out-of-doors, that make the muscular element prom- 
inent are to be commended above those which involve 
sitting still and using one's head. 

The discussion of this topic would not be complete The impor- 
tance of nu- 
without a word on the subject of nutrition. It seems a trition. 

safe inference from the evidence everywhere at hand that 

the amount of energy which can be expended in mental 

and physical activity will be determined by the ease with 

which this may be obtained in the process of nutrition. 

It is a fact of daily experience that when the stomach is 

overloaded with indigestible and waste materials the mind 

becomes lethargic, and the body httle disposed to vigorous 

activity.* Let any one recall his mental and bodily 

status after assisting at the ordinary Thanksgiving feast, 

or perhaps even the familiar Sunday dinner. At such a 

• "But Christmas puddings, brawn, and abundance of spirituous 
liquors, throwing the mental originality into the channels of nightmare, 
are great preservations against a dangerous spontaneity of waking 
thought." — George Eliot, in " Silas Marner." 



224 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

time the mind works slowly and inaccurately; and the 
philosophy of the thing is not at all abstruse. When food 
is taken into the system the organism will, if necessary, 
turn its forces wholly to extracting the nutriment con- 
tained therein. Suppose then that a considerable amount 
of half-raw starch, in breads or cereals or cakes, and fried 
meat and the like, finds its way to the stomach. The 
blood, rushing to the appropriate organs to supply the 
required digestive agents, must, of course, be withdrawn 
from the service of the cerebral and muscular systems.^ 
When, on the contrary, food is eaten which is nearly 
ready for assimilation the organism can, while attending to 
the now easy labor of digestion, engage also, in a measure, 
in mental or physical work. It is a question regarding 
the part of his organism — head or stomach — that one 
wishes to have occupy chief place in his existence. 

That imperfect nutrition is the cause of much irritabil- 
ity, ughness, viciousness, and kindred abnormalities in 
childhood is a matter of common observation. The 
following case is typical of many others which the writer 
has observed: H. was a well-developed child at 
birth, and everything went finely with her during her 
first five months. Throughout this period she slept well, 
and was happy and contented. She rarely protested 
against the estabHshed order of things. After the fifth 

' Cf. Hutchinson, "Food and Dietetics," pp. 42-43. See also WD^ 
liams, "The Chemistry of Cooking." 



ECONOMY IN THE EXPENDITURE OF ENERGY 2 25 

month, however, a change seemed to come over her. 
She became restless in her sleep; her features indicated 
that she was not happy or contented, and by the sixth 
month she could be called an irritable and peevish child. 
Some member of the family was now kept busy much of 
the time endeavoring to soothe her troubled spirit. This 
state of affairs continued until about the eighth month, 
when it was decided to make a change in her diet. Within 
a week it was observed that there was a marked improve- 
ment in her temper. After two weeks of the new regimen 
she had regained her former restfulness, sleeping peace- 
fully a due portion of time ; and gradually the expressions 
of irritability and moodiness disappeared. Her face 
would now light up as formerly with pleasant smiles 
whenever any one she knew was about, and once more 
she appeared to every one as a very good- feeling, happy 
child. From that time on care was taken with her food 
and her intellectual and emotional development was 
satisfactory in every way. Some time after her diet was 
enriched it was learned definitely that the food she had 
been getting just previously was quite deficient in nutri- 
tive elements. 

Before leaving this topic of nutrition a word on the Thenutri- 

° ^ tion of 

needs of school children may be in order. There is a school chii- 

•' dren. 

movement on foot now in some parts of the country to 
establish lunch counters in pubHc schools, where pupils 
may obtain refreshments at slight expense. The move- 



226 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

ment has not thus far gained the headway it should be- 
cause of the criticism of some people, to the effect that the 
school is an institution for training the head and not for 
filhng the stomach. But the fact that confectionery- 
stores always thrive in the neighborhood of pubHc schools, 
in cities where there are no lunch counters, is evidence that 
children need some refreshment in the course of the school 
day, and they will provide themselves with innutritious, 
harmful stuff if the school authorities do not take the 
matter in hand and supply the want. In these days, 
when so much has been accomphshed in the study of 
foods, relating to their nutritive value and the method of 
preparing them so that they will be palatable and easily 
digested, it is a misfortune that children should be com- 
pelled to get their nutrition from candy stores. Is it too 
much to say that a community is not expending its money 
profitably in the education of a poorly nourished child? 
If it is the function of society to educate the young, is it 
not its duty to make conditions most favorable for the 
attainment of the ends of instruction? This does not 
mean that school boards should feed school children gra- 
tuitously; but it does mean that it should provide the 
right sort of food at cost wherever there is need of it and 
the plan is at all feasible. 

The question of the nutrition of country school pupils 
is even more important than that of city children, but 
many regard any improvement here as impracticable for 



ECONOMY IN THE EXPENDITURE OF ENERGY 227 

the present. However, a recent writer, a country school 
teacher, does not feel this way about the matter. She 
reaUzes the need of providing more wholesome and nu- 
tritious food for country children, and she has in her own 
school devised a way of meeting the need. If her sug- 
gestions could be carried into effect they would probably 
solve some problems that perplex every rural school 
teacher. There would be fewer dullards sitting on her 
benches, and the uncontrollable restlessness which takes 
possession of the average country school in the afternoon 
would be likely to receive an effective antidote. This is 
the way this Michigan teacher looks at the matter: "Oh, 
that dinner pail ! Who does not know it ? With its 
tempting and nutritious array of pie, cake, pickles and 
tarts, or worse, its yellow ' sody biscuits, dried apple 
sass and fried fat pork. ' Yes, cold, greasy, fat pork ! 
Then think of a child who walks from half a mile to two 
miles to school, rain or shine, snow or sleet, and who is 
expected to apply himself to the industrious pursuit of 
knowledge, hving on such cold dinners during eight or 
ten months of the year ! 

"There are, to be sure, many broad-minded whole- 
souled farmers' wives (may their tribe increase) who do 
contrive to prepare, instead of knickknacks, something 
both palatable and nutritious for the noon-day luncheon; 
but the most intelligent care cannot make a cold meal as 
good as a warm dinner. And what is to prevent having 



228 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

a warm dinner, or at least one or two warm dishes pre- 
pared in every schoolroom where there is a stove ? A very 
little trouble and expense would furnish every district 
with the necessary cooking utensils, and the work of pre- 
paring the dinner and washing the few dishes used could, 
in most instances, be done by the pupils, who, with a Httle 
tactful guidance by a sensible teacher, would consider it 
a privilege to assist in the housekeeping." 

TOPICS FOR INVESTIGATION AND DISCUSSION 

1. Try the following simple experiments, noting how long 
you can continue in each case, and the general effect : (a) knit 
your brow, as in scowling or frowning intensely; (b) "double- 
up" your fist "with all your might and main"; (c) take a 
needle between the thumb and forefinger, and squeeze it as 
hard as you possibly can; (d) pull yourself by your arms as 
high as your chin, and remain there. Discuss the principle 
which these experiments illustrate. 

2. Describe the "nerve-signs" (if you do not understand 
this term fully see Warner, op. cit.) which indicate undue 
strain in the case of a pupil in the schoolroom. 

3. Show in as great detail as possible how fatigue is mani- 
fested in the people about you. 

4. Study the people you know who exhibit bad "nerve- 
signs," and see if you can tell what has been the principal 
factor in causing their fatigue. Do the same with yourself. 

5. Make out a list of the ways in which you think people in 
general and pupils in particular waste their energies. 

6. Observe the people about you who seem always to have 



ECONOMY IN THE EXPENDITURE OF ENERGY 229 

an abundance of energy for any tasks to be performed. Are 
they on the whole less or more active than persons who are in 
a depleted condition? What is the secret of their keeping a 
good stock of energy on hand ? 

7. Do men who enjoy their work ordinarily suffer from 
nervous prostration ? Compare them in this respect with men 
who regard their work as drudgery. Discuss the principle 
involved as it relates to the school. 

8. From the standpoint of fatigue, say whether the fol- 
lowing is a sound proposition : "Every man, woman, and child 
should mix in some play with his work every day of his Ufe." 

9. Show how the organism may waste its vitality in its 
efforts to extract energy from the food one eats. 

10. Discuss the plan adopted in some cities of beginning 
school at 8.45 A.M., and going on without intermission until 
1. 00 P.M. 



CHAPTER XV 

THE EFFECT OF iESTHETIC INFLUENCES UPON 
MENTAL TENSION 

Teachers are said to be rather more rigid and tense 
than most other people. And this, if true, is particularly- 
unfortunate, since these disorders are contagious. If you 
are in a bad state of nerves, and show it in tensions in 
features and voice and bearing; if you are fussy and ex- 
plosive, and I keep your company, I am apt to copy your 
expressions, and this has a tendency to lead me into your 
neurotic condition. Some of us instinctively avoid 
"bottled lightning" people, these nervous hypochondriacs, 
for they overstimulate us, and we realize it. On the other 
hand, we Hke to associate with well-poised! and well- 
nerved persons, for they help us to keep ourselves in hand. 
"If you . . . achieve calmness and harmony in your 
own person, you may depend upon it that a wave of imi- 
tation will spread from you, as surely as the circles spread 
outward when a stone is dropped into a lake." ^ 

For the teacher whose work tends to develop over- 
tension, there is one practical remedy, — he must fill his 
life with inspiring, cheer-giving ideas and influences, 

* Professor James, op. cit. 
230 



THE EFFECT OF ESTHETIC INFLUENCES 23 1 

which will dislodge the anxieties that tend to fasten on 
the brain Hke vampires, and suck out its vitahty. A 
teacher, more than any other person, ought to have at hand 
constantly some great book that has hved long in the race 
because of the good it has achieved in giving men hope 
and courage, and banishing dread and worry. Then 
music hath charms for the teacher as well as for his pupils. 
Every one must have observed how quickly a strain of 
music will change the current of one's thought and feel- 
ing. It can make one sad or glad in a moment.^ Ed- 
wards has presented us with a mass of evidence ^ showing 
that music may be used to soothe the troubled spirits of Music hath 

charms. 

those whose fears and worries have carried them beyond 
the power of self-control. Dr. Samuel B< Lyon, Medical 
Superintendent of the Bloomingdale Asylum at White 
Plains, N.Y., gives expression to views that are corrobo- 
rated by many others in similar positions. "So many 
different means are used in hospitals for the insane," he 
says, "to interest and divert patients, and to substitute 
healthy for morbid ideas, that it is hard to assign the rela- 
tive value to each one. That we value the effect of music 
on our patients is evident from the fact that we maintain 

• The following articles may be read with interest by any teacher: 
"Utility of Music," Forum, Vol. XXV, p. 300; "Music as Medicine," 
Music, Vol. XV, p. 651 ; "Effect of Music on Wild Animals," American 
Naturalist, Vol. XXXI, p. 460; "Cerebral Circulation and Music," 
Music, Vol. II, p. 232. 

^ See his "God and Music." 



232 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

an orchestra of eight or ten pieces, composed of our medi- 
cal attendants, and also that we have distributed a number 
of pianos about the house. We have regular musical en- 
tertainments at frequent intervals, and we encourage 
patients who have musical talent, or who have cultivated 
the art in the past, to take it up while they are with us. 
We can all appreciate, from our own experience, the cheer- 
ing and soothing effects of certain kinds of music, and no 
doubt the same influences are exerted upon persons whose 
minds are abnormally excited or depressed," 

Dr. Draper, an Irish ahenist, says of music, in its influ- 
ence upon those mentally troubled, that, "Nothing cheers 
these patients, or helps them forget their troubles in an 
equal degree to music. It transports them to another 
region for the time being, removes the cloud of depression, 
assuages grief, tranquilHzes excitement, and rarely, if 
ever, produces the slightest ill effect. The position of 
music in the treatment of the insane is, and ought to be, 
a high one, and its importance can hardly be exaggerated." ^ 

A teacher might use music much more than is usually 
done to subdue the disorder in a schoolroom which 
comes from fatigue. Admonition will often accomplish 
but Httle; scolding will only aggravate the difficulty; but 
the right kind of music, the kind that Plato would make 
so prominent,^ — that which cheers and is the expression 

* Quoted by Edwards, op. cit., p. 168. See, in this connection, Haweis, 
"Music and Morals." ^ ggg ^is "Laws," Bk. II. 



THE EFFECT OF ESTHETIC INFLUENCES 233 

of courage, — such music will help to restore the equipoise 
in overtense children. Shakespeare understood how 
profoundly music acts upon an individual. In the "Mer- 
chant of Venice" he says: — 

"For do but note the wild and wanton herd, 
Or race of youthful and unhandled colts, 
Fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud, 
Which is the hot condition of their blood; 
If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound. 
Or any air of music touch their ears, 
You shall perceive them make a mutual stand, 
Their savage eyes turn'd to a modest gaze, 
By the sweet power of music : therefore the poet 
Did but feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods. 
Since nought so stockish, hard and full of rage, 
But music for the time doth change his nature. 
The man that hath nq music in himself, 
Nor is not moved by concord of sweet sounds. 
Is fit for treason, stratagems, and spoils; 
The motions of his spirit are dull as night. 
And his affections dark as Erebus : 
Let no such man be trusted. Mark the Music." 

So in the words of Addison : — 

"Music can noble hints impart, 
Engender fury, kindle love. 
With unexpected eloquence can move 
And manage all the man with secret art." ^ 

* "It is related that 'when bloodthirsty crowds could not be quelled 
by John Wesley's coal-black eye, nor by Whitefield's imperial voice, they 



234 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

The pain and Modem biological psychology conceives of a human 

pleasure ef- . ... 

fects of every being as most deUcately responsive, ahke in a mental and 

experience. 

in an organic way, to every aspect of his environment. 
All of his experiences, even to the very least and inconse- 
quential, affect him for better or for worse. Every force 
that plays upon him, be it ever so sHght, probably heightens 
the tide of hfe, or depresses it. Regarded from this stand- 
point, the sole concern of an individual is to keep in con- 
tact with those forces that confer greater strength upon 
him, that build up his organism, and avoid those that 
tend toward destruction. And pleasure and pain are 
the means by which one distinguishes between the bene- 
ficial and the detrimental forces acting upon him. Those 
that yield pleasure are on the whole salutary ; those that 
yield pain are on the whole harmful; and for survival it 
is essential that one's pleasures should be kept more 
abundant than his pains. Pleasure results from a con- 
dition of congruity, and pain of incongruity, between the 
organism and its environment. 

were known to slink and turn away when the truth was sung at them 
in Charles Wesley's hymns. Their ringleaders more than once broke 
down under them in tears and groans of remorse. They took the preacher 
by the hand, and went his way with him, arm in arm, swearing by all that 
is holy that not a hair of his head should be touched.' The part which 
gospel lyrics have had in subduing the half-wild animal natures of Ameri- 
can pioneer settlers, slum dwellers, and Belleville auvriers is well known. 
Missionary work in all quarters of the globe would lose one of its most 
pervasive and persuasive forces if Christian propaganda were musically 
dumb." — Edwards, op. cit., pp. 158-159. 



THE EFFECT OF iESTHETIC INFLUENCES 235 

One phase of the environment which exerts a marked how different 

forms affect 

influence upon the organism is form, pure and simple, us. 
Experimental science has gone a httle way in the analysis 
of this influence ; and we have learned enough, it seems, 
to be able to say that the forms which we call beautiful 
are such because of the agreeable responses which they 
set up in the organism; while those which are ugly are 
so because they incite detrimental responses. The 
psychologist says we apprehend any form by exploiting 
it in a given manner. When I look at a human face, my 
vision is first directed upon some characteristic point, 
perhaps the eye ; then it moves to other prominent points 
until it sweeps around the face as a whole. If this move- 
ment in exploitation is facile, easy, and, as Spencer would 
say, economical, the object under examination will, unless 
some associations operate to the contrary, be regarded 
as agreeable, so far as the form alone is concerned. If, 
on the other hand, there is unusual effort required in 
exploiting the object, or if ocular processes are necessi- 
tated which are incongruous, or if the work of exploita- 
tion is wasteful of energy, the object will appear to be 
more or less disagreeable. 

Professor Witmer has treated this subject very satis- 
factorily in his "Analytical Psychology," and it may aid 
in making my point clear if I reproduce a few of his figures. 
In perceiving the form in Fig. 13, the eyes start at the left 
and sweep along over the line to the right. Most persons 



236 



THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 




Fig. 14. 




Fig. 15. 

find the sensations involved in this process of exploitation 
quite agreeable. In Fig. 14 the ocular movements are 
more complicated, less regular and, perhaps one might 
say, rhythmical, and for many this is not so agreeable a 
form as the first, though for others the effort in exploita- 
tion v^ill be enjoyed. As one looks at this figure, he finds 

Note. — Figures 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, and 19 are from Witmer's "Analytical Psy- 
chology." Copyright by Ginn & Company, 



THE EFFECT OF ^ESTHETIC INFLUENCES 



237 



his eyes are incessantly striving to follow one group of 
lines in one direction, but are constantly drawn on to 
another grouping, coursing in a different direction, and 
this leads to confusion and actual pain with some persons. 





Fig. 16. 



Fig. 17. 




Fig. 18. 



In the exploitation of Fig. 15, one has experiences simi- 
lar to those gained with Fig. 14. In Figs. 16, 17, and 18, 
exploitation proceeds from near the base, in each case, 
upward and outward in the direction of the significant 



238 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

lines. Probably most people enjoy Fig. 17 more than they 
do Fig. 16, because exploitation of curved Hnes is more 
agreeable than angular ones. In Fig. 19 there is a rotary 
exploitation, from left to right, and most people find the 
figure quite agreeable. These simple illustrations are 
designed to show that in apprehending any pure form, 




Fig. 19. 

the ocular experience in exploiting it will largely deter- 
mine whether it will be agreeable or otherwise. 

Again, different complex forms influence one in different 
ways, through the sympathetic response of vital processes. 
Holmes has said somewhere that when one emerges sud- 
denly from a wood, where his vision has been narrowly 
limited, into the open where the scene spreads broadly in 
every direction, his whole being will respond appropriately. 
In his own organism he simulates the things he looks 



THE EFFECT OF .ESTHETIC INFLUENCES 239 

upon. Vernon Lee, in some interesting studies relating 
to our reactions upon the forms in our environment, 
calls attention to the fact that when one stands under the 
great dome of St. Peter's, his whole being expands in 
emulation of what he looks upon. Groos^ has dwelt at 
length upon the tendency of one to put himself en rapport 
with the thing which engages his attention, and while this 
is especially true of our experience with human beings, 
it is by no means confined to these experiences alone. 
When I behold a building, the parts of which are well 
poised, and in which there are graceful curves, I have 
within myself the feeling of freedom, of movement, but 
also of poise and strength and balance. Little as I may 
be aware of it, my whole being is active in adjustment 
to anything which claims my attention. If I come into 
a room and see the pillars aslant, and everything out of 
poise, I am distressed. Most persons cannot endure 
such an experience; and it is not only the spirit, in the 
narrow sense, that is affected, but the disaffection strikes 
into our very vitals. Thus one moves about in the world, 
responding more or less to all the forms he looks upon, 
and he classifies them as beautiful or ugly, according as 
they stimulate agreeable or disagreeable responses in him. 
Again, color exerts a mighty though silent influence 
upon the human organism,^ in some cases beneficially, 

» See his " The Play of Man." 

* Color exerts an influence upon even the lower forms of life, as is 
shown in the manner bees, butterflies, moths, and birds are affected by 



240 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

The influence and in others detrimentally. It is shown in the psycho- 

of color. 

logical laboratory that color, most often red perhaps, 
may cause the heart to beat more quickly, increase mus- 
cular effort, and deepen respiration ; while a different color, 
as gray, may have a subduing influence upon these vital 
processes. We all reahze that some colors stimulate us 
strongly; they excite us too greatly, it may be, and we 
disHke them; we say we cannot tolerate them. Others 
do not stimulate us enough, and we say they are cold, 
lifeless, indifferent. Still others afford us just the degree 
of stimulation we need, and these we regard as agreeable, 
or beautiful. These latter attract us; we strive to go 
where we can see them, and if we can we surround our- 
selves with them. 

It is not implied, of course, that any given color will 
always affect us in precisely the same way. When one 
is already tense and overwrought, when his nerves are 
unstrung, he may feel the need of quiet colors, those 
which will not excite, but soothe rather. But when he 
is full of health and needing action, he may be dehghted 
with stimulating color as he is with stimulating music; 
he has energy to expend, and the stimulations that will 
call it forth are regarded as agreeable. Different people, 
too, are affected differently by any given color, depending 

brightly colored flowers. The bright plumage of birds has been selected 
because of its advantage in mating. Very young children choose col- 
ored objects and pictures before mere black and white. 



THE EFFECT OF ESTHETIC INFLUENCES 24I 

doubtless upon nervous tone. Still again, the effect of 
color stimulations is different at different periods in one's 
life. The child may enjoy the vigorous stimulations of 
strong color, while the sensitive adult may be unduly 
excited by it, and seek something quieter. But, speaking 
practically, he cannot impose his Hkes upon the child; 
the latter may be left wholly uninfluenced by stimula- 
tions, which are just sufficient for the adult. Studies 
by Mrs. Hicks, Barnes, and others show that young 
children are most pleased with yellow and orange, but in 
maturity these are said to be too "gay" and "gaudy" 
and "flashy." If we arrange, as some experimenters of 
late have done, the color choices of children from three 
to twenty, there will on the whole be a continual softening 
in tone with increase in years. 

Edwards ^ gives the results of interesting experiments 
with color in the treatment of mental alienation. He says 
that "the recent experiments of Doctors Bond and 
Monette, under the oversight of Dr. E. C. Dent, the Super- 
intendent of the Woman's Hospital on Ward's Island, 
seem to show the value of the color treatment for the 
insane, the fundamental principle of vibrational influence 
being the same with that ruhng in musical therapeutics. 
Patients are placed in rooms painted in one or another of 
the primary colors, according to the type and stage of 
their malady, and they generally manifest the favorable 

' Op. cit., p. 175. 



decoration. 



242 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

effect of the color environment. The black room is used 
for cases of acute mania. The patient placed in it, and 
thus removed from all aural and visual disturbance, usu- 
ally soon becomes quieter. Red, with its high vibration 
frequency, is employed for subjects of melancholia. 
From the red room they are removed to one in deep pink, 
then to one of a flesh color, and, finally, to a white 
room." 
The first con- Let US glance now at the practical application of the 

sideration in . . . 1 i • r 

schoolroom prmciples we have been considermg to the decoration of 
the schoolroom. The purpose in such decoration must 
be, of course, to present most effectively those colors 
and forms, and that arrangement of furnishings and ap- 
pointments, and those pictorial representations that will 
afford pupils the greatest pleasure. In schoolroom dec- 
oration attention should be given first to the coloring of 
the walls and furnishings, and the aesthetic character- 
istics of all schoolroom appointments, and materials used 
by pupils. Pictures are of service, but they are not of 
primary service. A room in which half the wall space 
is covered with blackboard, while the rest is toned with 
dust and smoke and mortar, — such a schoolroom can 
never be decorated effectively. Again, a room filled with 
ungraceful furniture, with desks marred, and bearing 
the inscriptions of generations of school children, with 
irregular windows and other spacings, can never be 
made a really attractive place. But a room full of warm 



THE EFFECT OF iESTHETIC INFLUENCES 243 

and cheering, or, if the conditions demand it, cool and 
soothing, color, and if there be added furnishings of 
simple, but graceful and aesthetic, construction, such a 
room is already well decorated. After all, the things that 
make the deepest impression upon us are those which we 
use in the attainment of the serious ends for which we are 
striving in daily hfe. If these be aesthetic they exert 
healthful and buoyant influences upon one every moment ; 
if they be ugly they are just as potent for harm. 

Great as may be the influence of a fine picture upon the 
wall, then, it cannot equal that of the thing with which 
the individual is in vital contact incessantly, and which 
he employs as means to the accompUshment of his pur- 
poses. Some day we shall give more attention than we 
now do to the aesthetic character of text-books, and tables, 
and illustrative materials, and all other apparatus of the 
school. A child who uses a reading book of artistic 
make-up in all particulars derives more aesthetic value 
therefrom than he would from the greatest masterpiece 
of art hung on the walls. And in this connection it may 
be said that an aesthetic teacher, — aesthetic in features, 
in figure, in dress, in movement, — is far more potent for 
aesthetic good in any schoolroom than a hundred pictures. 
The pupil's relation to the Hving teacher is so vital that 
it transcends in importance everything else environing 
him, especially all that exists for an aesthetic end merely. 
I would not minimize the importance of pictures, but I 



244 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

would emphasize the momentous character of these other 
things that enter into the real, concrete hfe of the pupil. 

TOPICS FOR INVESTIGATION AND DISCUSSION 

1. Is the old saying true, that you can tell a pedagogue as 
far as you can see him ? if so, by what tokens does he reveal 
himself ? 

2. Can you tell a person who worries? How is worri- 
ment revealed outwardly ? 

3. Discuss the psychology of anxiety, and show why it 
has such a disastrous effect upon the organism. 

4. Do we regard any book as great that tends to increase 
man's anxieties? Take your favorite book, and speak of it 
from this standpoint. 

5. What musical selections are most quieting in their in- 
fluence upon you? What ones tend to arouse you most 
vigorously ? 

6. What musical instruments are most soothing to you? 
What ones stimulate you ? Do any of them irritate you ? Why ? 

7. What kinds or quahties or characteristics of music 
please children of different ages most? What airs quiet them 
when they are excited? What ones excite them? Study this 
matter on the street, in the schoolroom, and in the home, to 
see if you can find answers to these questions. 

8. Do children enjoy solo singing? Are they affected 
more by the masculine or by the feminine voice? Do they 
enjoy chorus singing? Are they quieted or stimulated by it? 

9. Have you ever observed how your "nerves" are affected 
when you are in a house filled with bric-a-brac? Are you 
affected differently when you are in a house more simply but 



THE EFFECT OF ^ESTHETIC INFLUENCES 245 

artistically furnished? What application of the principle 
involved may be made to the furnishing of the schoolroom ? 

10. Public school art associations all over our country are 
becoming very active in placing in the schools reproductions 
of great works of art. Suppose they cover the walls of school- 
rooms with the finest pictures, but stop at this; will they have 
served pupils in the most effective way? If you think not, 
say what it would have been better for them to have done. 



CHAPTER XVI 

SOME COMMON WASTEFUL PRACTICES 

The squandering of one's forces may be due to factors 
other than a mind ill at ease with the world. The im- 
plements children employ in their school tasks are often 
responsible for considerable needless drain upon the 
nervous system, — such apparently insignificant things 
as writing pens, pencils, and the Uke. To appreciate 
the principle here involved one needs to remember that 
the highest brain centers exercise a general control over 
more fundamental ones, and are charged with the manage- 
ment of peripheral activities, such as those involved in 
writing, speech, etc. Now, it seems to be the case that 
peripheral coordinations fatigue children, and it may 
be adults also, more readily than coarser, less intricate 
activities. Thus, fine needle-work is, hour for hour, 
more fatiguing to most women than washing dishes; 
and "getting pigs out of clover" is a greater strain on most 
men than playing golf or croquet ; though habit and taste 
are, of course, important factors in these matters. It 
seems to be a rational inference from the known methods 
of cerebral action that in the majority of individuals, 
particularly during the developmental period, activity 

246 



SOME COMMON WASTEFUL PRACTICES 247 

of the highest level areas results in the hberation of a 
larger amount of energy than is actually required to per- 
form the work in hand. Peripheral activities, especially 
in the early years, are not in any thoroughgoing way 
differentiated from the more general or central activities; 
they have been developed relatively late in the race, and 
the nerve centers controUing them are not yet, seemingly, 
for most people, quite independent in the individual. 
It is conceivable that some, perhaps most, of the paths 
for the discharge of nerve force required for the execution 
of complicated peripheral actions have not yet become 
well established, so that in highly coordinated work 
much energy is apt to overflow into by-paths, so to speak. 
On the other hand, the fundamental motor coordinations 
have become so habitual that they can apparently be 
performed without waste. When a boy is washing off 
his slate one will notice fewer wasteful tensions and ac- 
tions than when he is trying to write in a finely coordinated 
way ; and the principle seems to have universal applica- 
tion. 

The position here taken is by no means fully warranted 
by experimental evidence; and there are those who 
maintain that through habit the individual may get to 
be as economical in the use of peripheral as of fundamen- 
tal muscles. My observations, however, lead me to a 
different view. Adult students tell me that very fine 
microscopical work with exact representation in drawing 



248 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

always fatigues them more readily than coarse activities 
of any sort. Professors who write much have told me that 
a very fine-pointed pen on highly glazed paper, or paper 
that is readily punctured either, is exceedingly "trying to 
the nerves." I was able recently to gain an item relating 
to this point from the experience of a distinguished phy- 
sician in Buffalo, a specialist in diseases of the nose and 
throat. Some of his work involved very delicate opera- 
tions requiring accurate coordinations of the fingers. 
He says he never undertakes such cases except in the 
morning hours, when he is at his best ; and after a rela- 
tively short period he generally is fatigued, so that he 
feels it necessary to secure rest before continuing with his 
duties. On the other hand, a half day's work in his 
general practice, which does not involve such exact co- 
ordinations, will not overtax him. For myself, writing 
with a fine pen or hard pencil relatively soon exhausts my 
store of energy and of patience; and I found recently, 
while experimenting with writing pens, that other teachers 
had experiences hke my own. Even if these considera- 
tions were immaterial as they applied to adults, still they 
would be of immense importance in their appHcation to 
children. 

Put a child of seven or eight to writing with a fine- 
pointed pen, and in a short time you will observe ten- 
sions in various parts of the body not employed in the 
writing. Often the tongue will be extended, the hand 



SOME COMMON WASTEFUL PRACTICES 



249 



not engaged will become clenched, the head will begin 
to keep time with the arm; the whole showing 
plainly, it seems, that the coordinations 
demanded in the writing have liberated 
energy which escapes into channels 
which should be kept closed up. On 
the other hand, if you put this pupil 
to writing with chalk at the black- 
board he will be able to continue for 
a much longer period without appar- 
ent overstrain. One will be im- 
pressed with the wastefulness of 
dehcately coordinated activities under- 
taken too early, if he will observe 
the effect of requiring young children 
to do fine sewing or weaving, or any 
work of this sort, whether in the 
home or in the school. In some 
nurseries the young are provided with 
small toys and fragile objects that have 
to be handled with care, and so far 
as I have observed such children 
are never either vigorous or happy. 
There is usually a good deal of petu- 
lance and irritabihty in these nurser- 
ies, for the reason, doubtless, that the children are in a 
more or less nervous, uncontrolled condition because there 



Fig. 20. — Illustrat- 
ing different styles of 
penholders. 

In a the part m is 
metal, usually tin, and 
is of small diameter. 

In A the part c is 
cork and is of a con- 
siderably larger diam- 
eter than m. 

A answers the pur- 
pose of economy much 
better than a. 



250 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

have been demanded of them activities for which they 
are not prepared. It is recognized, of course, that with 
the development of the nervous system greater dehcacy 
and complexity of coordinations become possible with 
less waste; but yet it is probable that the average indi- 
vidual never reaches a point where he can economically 
undertake intricate coordinations where coarser ones 
would answer just as well. 

This leads to a few practical suggestions respecting 
some of the implements which are used extensively in the 
schoolroom. And first the writing pen. Pupils write 
on the average from one to two and one-half hours daily, 
and it is a matter of prime importance for them to do 
this work with the least possible waste. The less energy 
that is spent in manipulating the pen the more that will 
be left for the elaboration of ideas to be expressed by its 
aid. The mechanical factor must be reduced to the mini- 
mum. Now fine-pointed pens are, at least for young chil- 
dren, an abomination. So are hard lead pencils, especially 
when used on glazed paper. Perhaps the most wasteful 
implement of all is the common penholder, a in the il- 
lustration. The fingers grip the small metal part m, 
perspiration readily accumulates, and the pen tends to 
roll in the fingers. To overcome this the holder is gripped 
more tightly, with serious results in the squandering of 
energy. In A, the part c is of cork, and is relatively 
much larger than m. It absorbs the moisture from the 



SOME COMMON WASTEFUL PRACTICES 25 1 

fingers, and so is managed without so great tension. I 
have tried many pupils with both these holders, and they 
have always told me they Hked A much better than the 
other because it is "so easy." The same principle ap- 
plies to lead pencils. A highly glazed surface involves 
waste because it cannot be managed without excessive 
tension of the peripheral muscles. Slates are probably 
the most wasteful of all the appUances of the school. 

"Scratchy" pens cannot be too severely condemned. 
Aside from their irritating influence upon the nervous 
system, they require such careful handUng that waste 
of energy cannot be obviated. I have never known a 
person to write long with such an implement without 
manifesting fatigue in body and mind. Pupils who em- 
ploy such articles to save time or money in getting some- 
thing better belong to the penny-wise and pound-foolish 
fraternity. Gold pens are generally much better than 
steel, for they can be handled in a rougher way without 
abrasion of the paper ; and steel pens corrode easily, the 
points thus becoming rough, which prevents easy manip- 
ulation. 

Needless muscular tensions wherever they occur must 
be regarded as squandering vital force.^ Thievery of 

* A Berlin nerve specialist has advanced the theory that no child 
should be allowed to learn to play upon the piano before the age of six- 
teen. He had his attention drawn to the chronic nervousness of many 
pianists, and so studied the piano from a pathological standpoint. 

Out of one thousand young girls whom he examined, each of whom 



252 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

Postures that the most scrious kind is likely to be taking place con- 

lead to waste 

of energy. stantly. Now the body in either a standing or sitting 
position is, of course, acted upon by gravity, and if it 
be out of plumb it tends to fall. This catastrophe can 
be averted only by the action of muscles which pull 
against gravity, and so serve to keep the body in equiHb- 
rium. Imagine then a person standing for some time 
in such a position that gravity has a leverage on him, and 
his muscles are at work striving to keep him from falling ; 
it is easy to see what this means in loss of nerve force. 
Pupils, or adults either for that matter, who do not ha- 
bitually stand or sit so that the body is well poised, and 
there is no undue tension, will certainly suffer for their 
error in lessened efl&ciency in both physical and mental 
work.^ 

had begun to study the piano under the age of fourteen, no less than six 
hundred had some nervous malady ; while out of one thousand who had 
never studied that instrument, only one hundred were afflicted. 

^ Meyer (summarized by Burnham, op. cit., p. 40), discussing the 
mechanics of sitting says: "The two seat-bones are curved hke a bow; 
a line joining the lowest points of these two bones is called the seat-bone 
line ; the center of gravity of the body is in front of the ninth or tenth 
chest vertebra, and a straight line from this point to the ground is the 
line of gravity. Upright sitting is possible only when this line passes 
through the seat-bone Hne. This line determines the surface of support 
for the body. But the least movement that displaces the center of gravity 
makes upright sitting impossible without great muscular effort." 

Recent investigation has established certain principles of hygienic 
seating, which have been presented by Lincoln, Barnard, Marble, Meyer, 
and especially by Shaw, in our own country, and by many hygienists 



SOME COMMON WASTEFUL PRACTICES 



253 



This subject is of consequence not simply from the 
point of view of conserving energy, but it concerns as 
well the generating of force. A pupil leaning over his 
desk, with his lungs constricted, is in a good condition 
to encourage day-dreaming and napping. Under such 




Fig. 21. — Illustrating a desk too high for the child, causing elevation of the 
right shoulder in writing and a corresponding curve in the spinal column. 
— Barry, The Hygiene of the School Room, 

circumstances the organism becomes clogged, since it 
does not receive its due of oxygen, as a result of which 
the brain must inevitably slow down in its action. Who 
has not seen a room full of seekers after knowledge, lying 
down on their desks, with all vital processes impeded, 

abroad. All agree upon the fundamentals of seating, and any reader 
who is interested is referred to Professor Shaw's full discussion of the 
whole matter in his "School Hygiene." 

Note. — Figures 21, 22, 23, 24, and 25 are from Barry's " Hygiene of the School Room." 
Copyright, 1904, by Silver, Burdett & Company. 



254 



THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 




Fig. 22. Fig. 23. 

Fig. 22. — Illustrating a very common fault in school furniture, a too high seat. 

The child is unable to rest the limbs on the floor and leans over on the 

desk for support. — Barry. 
Fig. 23. — Illustrating a too small distance between the seat and desk, causing 

pressure on chest and stomach. — BARRY. 




J^ 



Fig. 24. Fig. 25. 

Fig. 24. — Illustrating too great a space between the seat and desk, causing 

pupil to stoop too much, inducing round shoulders. — Barry. 
Fig. 25. — Illustrating a desk and chair too small for pupil's size, causing 

cramping of the lower limbs. — Barry. 



SOME COMMON WASTEFUL PRACTICES 



255 



and their minds in a kind of stupor? People sometimes 
put themselves to sleep by deliberately getting into the 
attitudes which school seats often enforce upon pupils. 





Fig. 26. 



Fig. 27. 



Fig. 26. — Illustrating an evil posture very common in schools where the seat- 
ing is imperfect. — Shaw, " School Hygiene." 
Fig. 27. — Chair and desk illustrating proper seating of pupil. — Shaw. 

Common errors in seating are shown in Figs. 21-26, 
while the correct form is shown in Fig. 27, 

Before concluding this chapter one further method of Danger of 

overstimu- 

squandering the energies of children may be mentioned lation. 
— overstimulation. In many homes and schools, es- 
pecially in our cities,* they are, from the cradle up, sub- 



* "The American child is the most nervous child in the world. It has 
more automatisms than any other child, according to the child studies 
that have been made. It is more easily upset ; its mind is quick and alert ; 
it matures younger than with most children. The American child is 



256 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

jected to continual excitement, which is as inimical to 
the right development and hygiene of the nervous system 
in childhood as the whirl of society or the crush of busi- 
ness in maturity. According to the fashion in many 
households, infants of a few months as well as children 
of maturer years are permitted to be in the presence of the 
older members of the family much of the time. Guests 
always expect to see the baby, to hold it, and to stimulate 
it in all sorts of ways to see how prettily and intelligently 
it reacts. This practice would not be so objectionable 
if it were not that when the average adult has a little child 
in his arms he is usually intense and restless in voice and 
actions. Few people seem to appreciate how much 
such treatment taxes the nervous strength of an infant. 
But let an older person imagine what a strain it would be 
to have excited people about him constantly, tossing and 
patting him, and making all manner of facial and vocal 
demonstrations for his entertainment. How much more 
it must wear upon a child to whom these things are new 
and strange, all arousing the strongest emotions of fear, 
curiosity, or excitement, and thus draining the plastic, 
immature brain of its vitalities ! 
The teased It is not alone the trials of meeting strangers that are 

extremely fatiguing to young children, but the experiences 

liable to get overnervous ; to have that dreadful twilight fever when the 
candles are first lighted; to be unable to stop play, unable to go to sleep 
readily; to have jumps and twitches when it does go to sleep." — Hall, 
Primary Education, May, 1903, Vol. XI, p. 216. 



child. 



SOME COMMON WASTEFUL PRACTICES 257 

with parents and other members of the family are often 
as exhausting. The young child, with its fresh, innocent 
ways, is not infrequently regarded as a plaything for the en- 
tertainment of its elders, and so is teased and tormented 
in one way or another, because its responses are so novel 
and interesting. Of course, parents would not call such 
treatment teasing, but it is precisely what it amounts to 
from the child's standpoint.^ 

The writer recently had opportunity to study with 
some care the effect which a woman with a high-pitched, 
exciting voice and intense nervous face and manner, 
but otherwise of most estimable characteristics, had 
upon a little child, H. Whenever she was near H. she 

* Here is a scene which is typical of much that may be observed in 
one's environment if he has occasion to look for it. A child disliked 
greatly to have anything touch its nose, and would make the liveliest 
efforts to dispel whatever came in contact therewith. The sweet baby 
movements were naturally amusing to an adult, who did not see anything 
in them but fun for himself. Frequently some mature person, who 
knew the child's characteristic in this regard, would place a finger or 
other object near the delicate member, to see the little one strive with 
arms, head, and body to drive it off. On one occasion a woman, whose 
years should have taught her better, was seen to tantalize the child for 
some time, until finally it became fatigued. When it grew restless and 
began crying, it was grabbed up, tossed and thrown about, and talked 
to in a loud voice. This violent stimulation overcame for the moment 
the child's impulse to cry, but had the effect to further fatigue it, which 
was shown later in continual crying until it fell asleep. If one will think 
of such things going on day after day throughout the early life of the 
child, the irritable, unbalanced, disagreeable children of one's acquaint- 
ance may be accounted for at least in part. 
s 



258 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

insisted upon taking her, and she thought the proper 
mode of entertainment was to shake and toss and pat her, 
and make a great amount of noise and ado over her. 
As a consequence a half hour of such treatment was 
enough to fatigue H. for a whole day, and her dis- 
position at such times would be quite changed from a 
happy, good-natured child to one easily irritated and 
satisfied with none of her ordinary pleasures. A nervous, 
irritable parent will breed these qualities in his children, 
because his personal contact will overstimulate them, 
and they will be in a state of chronic fatigue. Such a 
parent will be apt to nag his children, to be constantly 
forbidding or commanding, and this arouses emotion* 
which draw off the energies from the brain very rapidly 
Antagonism is a breeder of nerve fatigue, and some 
children seem hardly ever to be free from it during waking 
hours. The principle appKes to the schoolroom as fully 
as to the home. 

Again, in many homes older children make the life 
of the younger ones wretched much of the time. The 
writer knows a family where there are three children, 
the youngest about two years of age. The older ones 
seem to find no greater pleasure than to tease the babe 
on every opportunity, for she occasions them much merri- 
ment by her violent vocal and bodily expressions whenever 
she is tormented beyond endurance. One does not need 
to remain about this home long before seeing plainly 



SOME COMMON WASTEFUL PRACTICES 259 

that this child is being worried into an ugly disposition. 
Even at two years she has reached the point where she 
is intolerable much of the time, showing her unbalanced 
condition by flying into a passion over every Uttle thing 
that occasions her displeasure. The attitude of the older 
children serves to keep her in a more or less constant 
state of fatigue, and the actions performed in this condi- 
tion are rapidly forming habits, thus determining her 
character. 
Finally, noise seems to have an exciting effect upon an The effect of 

noise. 

individual at all times, even when he is asleep. It ap- 
pears that there is in the soul a sort of memory of earher 
racial experiences where noise was a most significant 
affair. An animal that could not awaken instantly upon 
sounds of howHng or crackHng or crunching or breathing 
in his vicinity would have httle chance of escaping from 
enemies lurking everywhere. And now, although man 
is quite safe in an environment of any amount of noise, 
yet he has not fully outgrown this old racial tendency 
to awareness when he hears noises. The effect of noise 
upon a sleeping subject has been studied by Lombard 
and others, and the results seem conclusive in showing 
that even a slight disturbance causes a decrease in periph- 
eral blood supply, as shown in Figs. 28 and 29, indicating 
that the blood is flowing in increasing quantities toward 
the brain, which tends to return to the waking state. 
In the first hours of life an infant will jump with fright if 



26o THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

you speak in a loud voice near him, or if a door slams, 
or if any other loud noise plays on him. So when older 
children hear noises on the street they are excited, and 
are impelled to action of some sort. How a drum will 



\ , ..^ "' 

"'Iil||,rnil,|i|.|lll1'' 


.|lliiriuiiiiiii''''"''''li,^il 
.iiiiiiiiiiii"niiiiiiii"i" 





Fig. 28. — Plethysmographic record from the arm of a person sleeping in the 
laboratory, A fall in the curve indicates a decrease in the volume of the 
arm. The curve is to be read in the direction of the arrow, i, the night 
watchman entering the laboratory ; 2, the watchman spoke; 3, watchman 
went out. These changes occurred without waking the subject. — DONALD- 
SON, op. cit., p. 289. 




Fig. 29. — Record similar to that above. Change in the volume of the arm of 
sleeping subject, caused by the sound of a music box which was started 
at *. — Donaldson, loc. cit. 

stimulate a child ! And this leads to a practical point. 
A drum may be a cause of overstimulation if used too 
continuously, and the same is true of all noise-making 
toys. A barking dog in a house with children will be 
likely to excite them too greatly. I have observed the 



SOME COMMON WASTEFUL PRACTICES 261 

effect upon several children of three loud-barking dogs 
gathering about them whenever they go out to play. 
They are continually excited and show that the experience 
is fatiguing. An adult will find that he can with difficulty 
endure this peculiar form of stimulation for a long period. 

TOPICS FOR INVESTIGATION AND DISCUSSION 

1. Try this experiment upon yourself: do all your writing 
for a given period with a pen having a metal holder of the 
smallest diameter you can find. Then for another period of 
equal length do your writing with a pen having a cork holder 
from two fifths to one half an inch in diameter. Compare your 
experiences, and make applications to the work of teaching. 

2. If you write much with a fountain pen, try the plan of 
using a close-fitting rubber tube drawn over the part grasped 
by the fingers when you are writing, making it about one half 
an inch in diameter. Note whether you can write with greater 
ease with the device. 

3. How long at a stretch can children of six years write 
with rmedium-pointed pens without overstrain? Can they 
write for a longer period at seven years? at eight? Make 
observations upon the pupils through the grades. How can 
you tell when they are becoming fatigued ? 

4. From the standpoint of economizing nervous energy, 
describe the materials pupils should use, speaking of pens, 
pencils, paper, sewing utensils, etc. 

5. Is there danger in insisting upon too precise articulation 
with young pupils? Should physical exercises in the lower 
grades be of the fundamental or the accessory type ? 



262 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

6. What is the objection to small print in children's books ? 
(See the following chap.) Have you observed that books now 
coming from the press are printed in larger type than for- 
merly ? What about the use of the ordinary school dictionary 
regarded from this standpoint? 

7. Should high school students be required to do much 
precise work with the microscope? Should they be held for 
precise work in draughting? 

8. Are "fancy work," knitting, sewing, and the like to be 
recommended as recreation for girls who are in school five 
hours a day ? Mention beneficial exercises for such girls, with 
reasons. 

9. In the spirit of our present discussion, what forms of 
recreation would you recommend for school boys of different 
ages? Mention some common occupations or amusements 
that should be avoided by such boys. 

10. Speak in detail of the methods you would adopt in pre- 
venting wasteful postures of pupils in the schoolroom. 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE EYE IN RELATION TO NERVOUS WASTE 

When one reflects upon the matter he can hardly fail work of 

ocular mus- 

of being impressed with the remarkable intricacy of the cies. 
motor coordinations required in the proper control of the 
eyes. During waking life they are well-nigh incessantly 
changing their focus, for one thing, so as to bring within 




Fig. 30. — Muscles of the eyeball. — a, optic nerve ; 6, superior oblique muscle ; 
c, pulley ; d, inferior oblique. 
The other four are the recti. — Le Conte. 

range of vision objects located in different parts of the 
visual field. In order to accomplish this they are equipped 
with ocular muscles (Fig. 30) so adjusted as to secure 
movements in all directions within a given orbit. In 
the perfect eye these muscles are exactly balanced in their 
pulling capacities, and remain at rest except when the 
interests of vision require action. 

But it happens often that one of the ocular muscles 

263 



264 



THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 



may be more energetic than its fellows ; or through some 
error in the functioning of the reflex nervous mechanism 
it may be active when it ought to be quiescent. It tends 
then to pull the eye out of focus, which would make one 
see double if it had its way; but the nervous system 
seeks reflexly to avert this calamity by stimulating a 
muscle opposed to the overacting one so as to counter- 
balance its efforts. Nature strenuously endeavors to 
correct all defects of this character. "When necessary, 
the nerve centers enervate to their utmost power the 
various eye muscles, causing a change in the crystalhne 
lens, stretching muscles which were too short to enable 
the eyes to look in the same direction." ^ This results 
then in incessant muscular strain which is a constant 
source of waste. Gould,^ the distinguished oculist, says 
that "The tremendous influence of eye strain upon dis- 
position, character, and vocation was borne in upon me 
the first year I was in practice. Almost every day since 
then the truth has become more striking and evident. 
Children's lives and minds are unconsciously and con- 
stantly modified, always unnaturally and morbidly, 
because of the fact, unconscious to them, that reading 
and study and writing irritates and disorders the central 
nervous system, the digestional organs, etc." 

Again, in the normal eye the lens and eyeball are so 

' Prentice, "The Eye in Relation to Health," p. 10. 
* In his "Biographic Clinics," Vol. I, p. 28. 



THE EYE IN RELATION TO NERVOUS WASTE 265 




Fig. 31. 



Fig. 32. 



Fig. 33. 



The term " refraction of the eye " is used for the refracting power of the eye 
in repose, without any exertion of the accommodation muscle. Refraction is 
normal, that is, the axis of the eye is of normal length, when rays of light 
which come from infinite distance are focused exactly upon the retina itself. 
In such a case we say that the refraction of the eye is emmetropic (from em- 
metros, " of the right measure," and ops, " the eye "). (Fig. 31.) 

Again, the axis of the eye may be too short, so that rays coming from in- 
finite distance are focused at a point behind the retina; this refraction is 
termed hypermetropic (" going beyond the measure ") or hyperopic (Fig. 32). 
This hyperopia must in no way be confounded with that long sight often 
noticed in old age, when the patient sees clearly only things at a distance, a 
defect caused by weakness of accommodation. 

Lastly, the axis of the eye may be too long, so that rays from infinite dis- 
tance are focused in front of the retina (Fig. 33). This kind of refraction is 
called short-sighted or myopic (from tmeein," to blink," and ops, "(he eye") 
because most short-sighted people nearly close their eyelids when they try to 
look at any distant object. (Cohn.) 



266 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

constructed that objects are with ease focused exactly 
upon the retina. But it happens more frequently than 
not, it seems, that this fine adjustment is not secured. 
The lens has not the right degree of curvature, as a whole, 
or in a certain angle, or the eyeball is either too short or 
too long, when the focus falls in front of or behind the 
retina, or is not the same in every angle (Figs. 31, 32, 33). 




Fig, 34. — F, lens adjusted to distant objects; A^, to near objects; a, aqueous 
humor; d, ciliary muscle; e, ciliary process. (Le Conte.) 

In a more or less reflex way the individual tries to remedy 
any error of this sort by modifying the curvature of the 
lens through the dehcate ciliary muscles (Fig. 34). 
In a defective eye this strain must go on incessantly, and 
one can easily imagine the effects in draining the organ- 
ism of nerve force. We are hearing these late years that 
the eye is the source of a large number of diseases; and 
even if its importance in pathology has been somewhat 
exaggerated it is, nevertheless, universally conceded that 
defective vision entails most serious consequences, alike 
in blocking one important approach to the mind and in 
robbing the system of its energy.^ In the defective eye 

* Swift, in the American Physical Education Review, 1899, gives a 
number of examples of disturbances in various parts of the body, due 
directly to eye strain. Here is an instance: "About nine years ago a 



THE EYE IN RELATION TO NERVOUS WASTE 267 

these muscular tensions go on hour after hour, and only 
the most hardy constitution can endure the strain, as 
Ranney,^ Prentice,^ Cohn,^ James,^ and many others 
have repeatedly pointed out. 

Gould,^ in his interesting study of the causes of the ill- Dr. gouw 

on the effects 

health of some of the great men and women of history, — of eye strain. 
Darwin, Huxley, the two Carlyles, Spencer, Wagner, and 
many others, — maintains that eye strain was respon- 
sible for most of their maladies. In discussing De Quin- 
cey's ill health, he makes a statement which will be in 

man came to Dr. Alcorn for examination. In the course of the inquiry 
the following facts were learned: During the three preceding years the 
patient had suifered from three attacks of what his physicians diagnosed 
as paralysis. For about three months after each attack the man was 
afflicted with sensory aphasia. He was unable to interpret written or 
spoken words. He could pronounce words, but they had lost their 
meaning for him. During the entire three years he had been unable to 
attend to any business. The visual acuity of his left eye was twenty 
twentieths, and of the right eye about six two-hundredths. Under a 
mydriatic the left eye manifested a slight degree of hyperastigmatism. 
The patient returned in three months and said that he ' had entirely 
recovered and was attending to his business regularly.' About one week 
since he was again seen and reported that he had never felt any symptoms 
of a relapse since he began wearing the glasses nearly nine years ago, 
except on one or two occasions, when his glasses had become twisted, or 
when he had laid them aside for some reason." 

* "Eye Strain in Health and Disease." 
2 Op. cit. 

' " Hygiene of the Eye." 

* " Suggestions to Teachers Regarding the Visual Defects of School 
Children." 

* "Biographic Clinics," two volumes and several pamphlets. 



268 THE ENERGlC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

place here. " It is one of the greatest of unutilized truths," 
he says, "long known, strangely ignored, that in the vast 
majority of cases of eye strain the morbid results of the 
astigmatism, etc., are not felt in the eyes. It is perfectly 
explainable why this is so. The value of the eye so over- 
tops that of almost any other organ that the reflex results 
of its unphysiologic function must be shunted anywhere 
except back to the eye itself. In women it goes to the 
head; the world is full of those tortured nearly every 
day of their lives with headache ('bihous' or 'nervous' 
headaches). In many, and especially with men work- 
ing much with the eyes, the reflex is to the digestional 
organs, with 'indigestion' and 'Hver derangements,' 'ano- 
rexia,' etc. The truth that eye strain induces these 
functional gastric, intestinal, and bihary disorders cannot 
much longer be ignored." * 

Eye defects seem to manifest themselves especially dur- 
ing adolescence. A great many boys and girls reaHze now 
for the first time that they have eyes. The explanation 
doubtless is that the organism is now devoting its strength 
mainly to the building of heart, and lungs, and bones, 
and there is not much left to expend in discipHning re- 
fractory eyes. In sickness people become conscious of 
eye strain that they have not noticed before, and of which 
they are never really aware except when the energies of 
the organism are at a low ebb. Swift observed this phe- 

' See his "Biographic Clinics," Vol. I, pp. 34-35. 



THE EYE IN RELATION TO NERVOUS WASTE 269 

nomenon frequently in his study of vision in the pupils 
of the normal school at Stevens Point, Wisconsin. "An 
interesting fact," he says, "though by no means a new 
one, was repeatedly observed. Young boys and girls, 
with more defect than some older ones, had never expe- 
rienced any trouble with their eyes, while the older ones, 
with much less defect, were constantly annoyed with eye 
ache, or the blurring of the letters. The difference was 
that the vigorous nervous system of the young boys and 
girls was able to sustain the irritation of the poorly con- 
structed eye, and by an oversupply of nerve force, could 
compel the eye to do its work without apparent injury, 
while the more exhausted nerve centers of the young men 
and women could not stand the constant call for more 
energy." 

One observing people on the streets of our American Thepreva- 

1 • 1 lence of 

cities must be impressed with the relatively small number eye defects, 
who are spectacled. Whatever opinion he may hold 
regarding the relation of spectacles to mental attainment, 
he must at least conclude that many are wasting energy 
in combating visual defects that ought to be remedied 
by glasses. Investigations made within the last decade 
in various parts of our own country and Europe show that 
on the average 30 per cent of individuals have defects of 
vision which require correction by lenses.^ And the de- 

' See O'Shea, "The Right Physical Start in Education," in the World's 
Work, August, 1903. In this article I give the results of an extensive ex- 



270 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

fects increase with age ; as high as 40 or 50 per cent of 
the children in the upper grades in some places have de- 
fective sight. According to Cohn myopia increases rapidly 
with age in the German schools; "in the real-schulen the 
myopia percentage from the sexta to the prima were 9, 
41, 16.7, 19.2, 25.1, 26.4, 44; in the gymnasia 12.5, 18.2, 
23.7, 31, 41.3, 55-8." Professor Swift's researches indicate 
that at least three fourths of the students in his normal 
school had some visual defect. In Rochester, New York, 
31 per cent of the children in the high school, according to 
the principal, have defects of vision which can be detected 
without any expert examination. And so it goes. Pren- 
tice, Cohn, and others have recently argued that no indi- 
vidual can afford to go through hfe without ascertaining 
the true condition of his eyes; and Ingalls says it is use- 
less to put a child at study when he is afflicted with some 
eye trouble, either of refraction or of muscular action. 
Because one is not conscious of a defect is not conclusive 
evidence that he does not possess it. I take my vision to be 
the standard, the normal, unless some one or some event 
teaches me better. The only safe course is to have my 
vision measured up to a norm or standard ; and if it does 
not fulfill requirements to call the ocuHst and the optician 
to my aid. 

For the most part the eye has been used throughout 

amination of the sense defects of the school children of Madison, Wis- 
consin, and I also summarize the results of examinations made elsewhere. 



THE EYE IN RELATION TO NERVOUS WASTE 27 1 

racial history in discerning relatively large objects and The waste- 
fulness of 

those at a considerable distance. It has been only within reading ex- 
cessively 

the most recent period that such visual coordinations fine print. 

have been required as are necessitated in the reading of 
print. Authorities agree that a child of five or six, for 
instance, has not developed the visual abihty to read fine 
print with safety. When a child of this age is set to 
studying a primer printed in small type, he is likely not 
only to suffer great strain, but injury is apt to result to 
the visual organ. It is probable, too, that even in adult 
life the reading of very fine print requires coordinations of 
ocular muscles which result in waste of nervous force. 
Cohn, Sanford, Weber, Cattell, Javal, and others have 
calculated the size and shape of letters and the character- 
istics of print which can be read with greatest ease, and 
every teacher should become familiar with the results 
of their studies.* Dr. Cohn summarizes his views as 
follows: "In the future I would have all school authori- 
ties, with measuring rule in hand, place upon the Index 
librorum prohihitorum all school books which do not con- 
form to the following measurements : The height of the 
smallest 'n' must be at least 1.5 mm. (.06 inches), the 
width between the lines must be 2.5 mm. (.1 inches). 
The least thickness of the *n' must be .25 mm. (.01 
inches), the shortest distance between the letters .75 mm. 
(.03 inches), the greatest length of text line 100 mm. 

* They are summarized by Burnham in the Fed. Sent., June, 1892. 



272 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

(4 inches), and the number of letters in a line must not 
exceed 60." 
Defective In conclusion, I may call the attention of teachers to 

vision as a . . , , . . , . , 

cause of dull- the necessity of looking to the eyes for an explanation 01 

ness and irri- 
tability, shortcomings in their pupils. Many writers have in re- 
cent times maintained that defective vision is the cause 
of much dullness and irritability in the schoolroom, and 
it will not be needful to go into the theory of the matter 
here. I wish, though, to give the notes made under my 
direction by Professor Ray ^ upon two pupils who have 
given their parents and teachers much trouble. These 
pupils were carefully observed for a considerable period, 
and their cases are typical of others we have on record. 

General Report, Case 2. — A boy who has been observed 
for a period of three years. At the age of five he was thought 
to be in good physical condition, but was regarded as an 
incorrigible lad. He was disobedient in the extreme, seemed 
to be unhappy and continually interested himself in making 
others unhappy. He made no progress in kindergarten work. 
His drawings, so far as they could be said to have shape, were 
always inverted. An inherited stupidity was all that could 
account for this condition. " John never will learn anything 
anyhow, he can't do anything Uke the other children," was 
the best that could be said of him. Entering the public school 
at the age of seven, he manifested the same disposition and 
the same lack of ability to learn. The boy is now taken care 

' The results of Professor Ray's studies have been embodied in a 
Thesis, now in the library of the University of Wisconsin. 



THE EYE IN RELATION TO NERVOUS WASTE 273 

of. It was with difficulty that the oculist reached his case, but 
when it was accomplished he was at once a new boy. Some 
time elapsed before he had a proper conception of form, but 
the old habits were gradually overcome, and he became a rapid 
learner and happy and docile in disposition. 

The cause of the irritable and nervous condition of this lad 
was due to the effect of the disordered eye upon the nervous 
organism and, perhaps, no less to the fact that he was unable 
to share in the knowledge which other children were obtaining 
because of his weakened powers of perception. After his 
treatment by the ocuhst, his knowledge of objects was soon 
observed to be more definite and complete, and afforded him 
increased interest and pleasure. 

General Report, Case 3. — A boy under observation for 
three years. Because of myopia and astigmatism, he was 
evidently unable to see well enough to understand with other 
children, and acquired a habit of dependence and indifference. 
Pain from the use of the eyes gave discomfort and dislike for 
school. At the age of seventeen he is greatly aided by the use 
of glasses in gaining knowledge from books and takes much 
more interest in study, but the habits acquired in the earlier 
years cHng to him. He is slow in speech, but likes to think 
and learn best from hstening to others, and is much interested 
in matters for debate. With improvement in his ability to see 
has come also improvement in moral principle and consideration 
for others. Without question, if his eyes had been attended to 
at the proper time, he would be much more rapid in movement 
and speech, and have no serious defect in his mental grasp. 
I have found in every case of eye defect which has had some 
continuance, and was of such a nature as to interfere with 
clear vision, that there was defect in motor development. 



274 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

TOPICS FOR INVESTIGATION AND DISCUSSION 

1. Try this experiment: find among your companions one 
who wears quite "strong" glasses to correct a different defect 
from your own, if you have one. Put on these glasses for a 
little time and note results. What is the relation between eye 
strain thus artificially produced and that resulting naturally 
from defective vision? 

2. If you can do so, get from all your associates who wear 
glasses a statement of their experience with defective vision. 
What difficulties has the wearing of glasses corrected ? What 
influence have glasses had on their emotional life ? 

3. What would you do with a pupil who habitually com- 
plained of his eyes "smarting" or "hurting" in the school- 
room? 

4. What would you do with a pupil who said he could not 
read without suffering pain in the top and back of his head ? 

5. What would you say to parents who object to having 
their children, who have defective vision, wear glasses, main- 
taining that they will outgrow their trouble as they get older ? 

6. Describe practical methods of detecting visual defects 
in school children. Would it be a satisfactory way to ask 
pupils if they had "good eyes"? 

7. Pay a visit to the nearest elementary and high school, 
and find out precisely what proportion of the children wear 
glasses. What is suggested to you as a result of your inquiry ? 

8. Suppose you have in your schoolroom children whom 
you know have defective vision, but who for some reason do 
not wear glasses. Would you treat them differently from other 
pupils? Do the teachers you know give special attention to 
visual defects ? Did they do so when you were in school ? 



THE EYE IN RELATION TO NERVOUS WASTE 275 

9. In what ways would you expect a pupil suflFering from a 
marked case of myopia, hypermetropia, or astigmatism to 
manifest his defect in the work of the school ? 

10. Does the lighting of a schoolroom have any bearing on 
the problem of conserving nervous energy? Show how. 
Comment on a situation where one half of the pupils in a room 
are far removed from the windows, which are situated on only 
one side, and that on the north side. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

THE DAILY PROGRAMME IN RELATION TO 
NERVOUS WASTE 

Concerning DuRiNG the past decade a great deal has been said, 

overpressure 

in the schools, alike in the educational and in the secular press, regarding 
overpressure in education. Physicians and educators 
have noted with great apprehension the apparently in- 
creasing number of pupils in the higher schools who are 
deficient in that vigor and robustness of body and mind 
which are essential for success in the battle of life. We 
are told that nervous diseases are much more frequent 
in youth to-day than they were a generation ago, and the 
fault must lie with the schools, for they pass the safety 
line in the demands they make upon their pupils. This 
feeling has been so marked and widespread that many 
investigations have been prosecuted in Europe, and to 
some extent in our own country, for the purpose of ascer- 
taining the true condition of affairs respecting the amount 
of work required of students, and the effects thereof. 
Thus far little of final value has been attained; but yet 
the conviction is deepening in the public mind that educa- 
tion is too much of a forcing process, which makes demands 
upon energies that should be saved for the use of vital or- 

276 



DAILY PROGRAMME IN RELATION TO WASTE 277 

gans during their growing periods. Physicians have been 
urgent in their demands that the work of the schools be 
lightened/ Oppenheim ^ is unsparing in his criticism of 
the present regime as it exists in the lower grades. Keat- 
ing, after long experience with diseases of children, finds ' 
that many of them have their origin in excessive strain 
incident to school work, and he, too, insists upon reform. 
Some examinations of school children in Germany have 
shown that frequently they return to their work, day after 
day, with constantly increasing fatigue ; recuperation does 
not take place fully during periods of release from recita- 
tion and study.* 

An attempt has been made to determine the amount 
of study which may be safely undertaken by a pupil at 
different stages in his progress through the schools. It 
must be apparent, however, that it is impossible to formu- 

* Key, in his work on " School Hygiene," is very emphatic in his state- 
ments that the children of Sweden are seriously overtaxed. Nesteroff 
makes similar statements with reference to the Russian school children. 
The Nuremberg Congress of Hygiene has devoted itself particularly to 
the question of overpressure, and it has declared that the German school 
system is too severe upon its pupils. 

2 In his " The Development of the Child," Chap. V. 

* See his "Mother and Child," pp. 180, 219, 220. 

* See Kraeplin, "A Measure of Mental Capacity," Pop. Sci. Mo., Vol. 
XLIX, p. 758. 

Ballantyne, in England (see the Lancet for 1890, Vol. II), declares 
that the English children are being seriously injured by overpressure in 
the schools. In this connection one recalls Spencer's indictment of the 
English schools, made over a quarter of a century ago. 



278 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

late any general law respecting this matter. Individuals 
dififer so greatly in the amount of energy which may be 
expended in intellectual and physical activity that no rule 
could apply to all. Again, the kind of work done and the 
conditions under which it is prosecuted must exercise an 
important influence upon the readiness with which energy 
is expended. It seems, though, to be the view of those 
most competent to form an opinion, that children in the 
elementary school should not spend more than three 
hours a day in mental labor. This period may be gradu- 
ally lengthened as the pupil develops, until the Hmit of 
not more than eight hours a day is reached in the high 
school or college. It is important to note, however, that 
during these eight hours the attention is to be concen- 
trated upon mental tasks; mind wandering and reverie 
are not to be considered as work. 

Taking the situation as it is, it seems probable that the 
injurious effects of study upon the health of pupils, of 
which we hear so much, is due more largely to the unhy- 
gienic conditions under which the work is carried on than to 
mental application per se. It seems to be true that during 
waking hours the mind must be constantly active in some 
direction; and if study can be done under proper con- 
ditions, it is probable that it will be no more fatiguing 
than other sorts of mental occupation. It is, after all, 
perhaps, not so much a question of the amount of study 
as of the circumstances under which the study is con- 



DAILY PROGRAMME IN RELATION TO WASTE 279 

ducted; except, of course, that if a child spends six or 
eight hours a day in the school he cannot itieet the re- 
quirements of hygiene in respect of exercise and sleep/ 

Doubtless pupils as a whole spend too much time in the Less time 

in the school 

schoolroom, not only wasting energy, but, what is worse, room, 
idling away a good many precious moments, and thereby 
contracting habits which will be of great disadvantage to 
them in after years. The statement has frequently been 
made at educational meetings of late, that children ought 
to do all the work of the school day in a single hour if their 
attention could be concentrated upon the tasks in hand. 
While this statement is probably excessive, yet I am thor- 
oughly convinced that fully one half the time of the 
average child that should be devoted to exercise is wasted 
sitting in school seats. This it is that weakens the con- 
stitution, and makes children unable to resist disease; 
it is not intellectual activity in itself. Men hke Key,^ 
Bancroft,^ and others have continually called attention 

' Prolonged examination periods work greatest harm in the schools. 
In the high schools and colleges students often spend over their books 
as high as sixteen hours a day for two or three weeks at a stretch. The 
work is done under great tension, too, which makes it especially waste- 
ful. There is crying need of reform in this respect. I have seen cases 
of breakdown also in the elementary school, due entirely to the strain 
and worry incident to examinations. 

^ See Mosso, "Fatigue," p. 319. 

* See the Phys. Ed. Rev., Vol. VII, p. 33. Note this statement: 
Sitting, and particularly reading and writing, is abnormal, and is con- 
ducive to postures that restrict circulation, respiration, and assimilation, 
the three fundamental biological processes. 



28o THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

to the danger of children sitting too long at a time. An 
interesting experiment relating to this matter has been in 
progress for four or five years in Ithaca, New York. 
The school day for certain children in the primary grades 
has been shortened by half, and the results indicate that 
fully as much is accomplished in one hour under the new 
regime as in two or three hours in the old-fashioned way. 
In a recent report Superintendent Boynton says that a 
one-hour class was opened two years ago in connection 
with the training department school. A number of 
children were entered for this class, and they were kept 
at their books only forty-five minutes a day at first, but 
later the time was extended to one hour, and in the spring 
quarter it was lengthened to one and one half hours. In 
the middle of that year a second class of about the same 
size was organized in a similar manner. The children 
in both classes were regarded as below the age appropriate 
for undertaking the work of the primary grades; but, 
and this is very suggestive, the first class did without diffi- 
culty the work of the first grade, and the second class 
made corresponding progress. When the report was 
made the first class was doing the work of the first half of 
the third grade, and the second class the work of the first 
half of the second grade. 

Mr. Boynton declares that the children were in no 
wise exceptional, and in his opinion the pupils in the 
primary schools of any city "can be divided into small 



DAILY PROGRAMME LN RELATION TO WASTE 28 1 

sections on short time with the same satisfactory results.'* 

In a private letter he writes : — 

"During the past year our first primary grade pupils, 
who entered school in September, 1900, have not been in 
school to exceed two and a half hours daily. Teachers 
are very enthusiastic over the change, and the amount of 
work done exceeds that of any previous year. ... In 
two of our primary schools not only is the work of the first 
year being done, but nearly one half of the second year 
will be completed by the close of the school year, June 27. 
No attempt at crowding has been made ; simply, children 
have worked well while they were in school. When their 
work was over, they have gone into the open air to play, 
or to go home." ^ 

We need further experiments along this line before we 
can dogmatize on the virtues of short school days ; but it 
is certainly not hazardous to say that if we could reduce 
our classes in the primary schools to one half the ordi- 
nary size, so that a teacher might keep all pupils vigorously 
at work, and follow carefully each mind under her care, 
as much could be accomplished in one hour as in four 
hours under the ordinary plan, and with far better results 
to the health and habits of the children. As it is, in class 
rooms where there are fifty or sixty children, half of the 
time of the teacher is sometimes devoted to nagging 

* See in this connection an experiment made by Charles Paget in England, 
and recorded in the Journ. of Educ. (English), Oct., 1884. 



282 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

pupils ; and both the pupils and the teacher suffer greatly 
under such conditions. 

Looking at some of the regulations in accordance with 
which the programme of the school should be arranged so 
as to make the energies expended by pupils count for the 
most, it is apparent, for one thing, that attention must be 
concentrated upon the topics in hand for unbroken 
periods, differing in length with individuals, with age, 
and with the nature of the subject attended to. Binet 
and Henri * and others have shown that it takes a little time 
to warm up to a subject, so that one can do his best in 
it. If he apphes himself only a few moments at a time, 
he never reaches his maximum of efficiency. Common 
sense tells us that one may accomplish more with less 
effort when he holds his mind to a task than when it is 
constantly wandering into by-paths; and neurology has 
produced some evidence giving warrant to this view. It 
has been pointed out that there is what one might call 
division of labor in the cerebral factory. In one section 
is carried forward a certain variety of work, in another 
a different kind ; and so each department has its special 
duties. Now if one be attending to mathematics, for 
instance, it is probable that a special department of the 
brain is particularly active. The memories and the asso- 
ciative functions in that region are aroused and energetic. 
And the longer one holds his attention to his subject, up 

' See " La Fatigue Intellectuelle," especially pp. 247-250. 



DAILY PROGRAMME IN RELATION TO WASTE 283 

to a certain point, the clearer are subtle relations dis- 
cerned, and the more rapidly does thought proceed. In 
a neurological sense this means that the inertia of the 
brain in special areas is overcome, and energy moves along 
desired lines with less resistance than at the outset. But 
now let the attention wander unbidden into another field, 
and it must arouse inactive regions that for the time being 
ought to remain dormant. This dissipates both time and 
vital force. 

It must be familiar to every one that solving a problem 
and learning a poem at the same time is bad economy. So, 
too, it is a wasteful practice to try to master one's psy- 
chology or literature or mathematics while listening to 
the conversation of a roommate, or while one's mind is 
idly straying off into neighboring regions of either study 
or anticipated pleasures. The conservation of mental 
energy requires that a pupil should have certain periods 
when he is wholly uninterrupted, and can give his atten- 
tion absolutely to the work in which he is engaged. He 
should be out of sight and hearing, in thought at any rate, 
of every stimulus which tends to distract his attention. 

While economy demands uninterrupted periods for Relaxation, 
study, yet this does not mean that a pupil should apply 
himself three or four hours without any relaxation. On 
the contrary, experience, as well as considerable investiga- 
tion by Biirgerstein and others, seem to show that greater 
progress is made in the intellectual operations if attention 



284 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

be not constrained to a given task beyond the point of 
fatigue/ whatever this may be. If at the approach of 
fatigue the attention be released for a time it will return 
to work with renewed vigor, and in the long run the pupil 
will accomplish more than if he had kept straight on 
when his powers began to decline. Kraeplin, Friedrich, 
and others have observed that pupils work best when 
school sessions are interspersed with short periods of rest. 
Attempts have been made to ascertain the span during 
which attention can be profitably held to a subject; but 
as in the case of the amount of work which can be done, 
the result must be purely relative; it depends upon the 
subject and upon the individual. It is the general opinion, 
though, that periods of strenuous application should not ex- 
ceed fifteen minutes in the primary grades, and twenty- five 
minutes in the highest grades. After this stretch a break 
of five minutes or so spent in moderate physical activ- 
ities will aid in restoring nervous tone. It is important, 
though, that the relaxing exercises should not demand 
just as great concentration of attention as study. The 
purpose in relaxing, which was argued in the preceding 
chapter, is to relieve the will, to set it free, when it will 
return with renewed vigor to mental tasks. It is a mistake 
to think that gymnastic exercises take the place of free 
relaxation periods. During the gymnastic drill the pu- 
pil must give active attention, and the brain is thus not 

* Cf. Mosso, op. cit., p. 152. 



DAILY PROGRAMME IN RELATION TO WASTE 285 

greatly relieved, a point noted by Mosso/ Kraeplin,^ 
Kotelmann,' Shaw,^ and others. 

For economy, then, have short periods of close ap- short ex- 
plication, followed by rest. As Superintendent Kratz strong 

stimulation. 

has said,^ — " In order to attain the highest possible 
maximum of mental efficiency, with the greatest economy 
of effort, provide working periods with more frequent 
rest periods, and thus secure, through this power of the 
mind to recuperate rapidly, an almost continuous high 
state of mental vigor. That which has prevented us in 
the past from injecting more freely these rest periods 
into the work periods has been the fear that during such 
interruptions pupils would lose all the advantage gained, 
but that fear, according to this statement of our friends, 
the psychologists, is not well founded. The mind, in- 
stead of being, as we supposed, like the old-fashioned 
sensitized plate of the photographer, which required a long 
exposure, is, after all, more like the highly sensitized plate 
of the snapshot camera. Not long exposure, but right 
conditions, such as proper foundations, close attention, 
profound interest — these determine the vividness of the 
mental picture, its permanency, and the degree of strength 
gained. We need, especially in the lower grades, to bring 
in these more frequent rest or exercise periods, believing 

» "Fatigue," p. 280. * Op. cit., p. 184. 

2 Pop. Sci. Mo., Vol. XLIX, p. 761. ♦ "School Hygiene," p. 231. 
* Add. and Proc. N. E. A., 1899, p. 1091. 



286 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

that the increments of power gained from mental activity 
will not be dissipated through such slight interruptions, 
and that efl&ciency of public school work will be greatly 
increased as well as relieved of much of its present 
drudgery." 
The sequence The Sequence of studies in the day's work is a matter 
of some consequence. It has already been said that 
special regions of the brain have charge of special mental 
activities. When, then, the mathematical areas, for in- 
stance, have been exercised for a reasonable period, 
economy would suggest that these be relieved while other 
areas are employed. To follow one mathematical study by 
another is not the part of wisdom, unless the first has used 
but a fraction of the available energy. If it were pos- 
sible, it would be advisable to keep the attention concen- 
trated upon a subject, number or spelling or geography, 
until the energy which can be utilized in that direction is 
largely spent; then turn to another study of a different 
character. This is not so important for the older as for 
the younger pupil ; a senior in the high school should be 
able to disregard the law of sequence in studies with less 
evil results than the pupil in the alphabetic class. The 
senior can draw more largely upon all his resources for 
special purposes; he can summon a good part of his 
strength on occasion. But it seems advisable that with 
all pupils studies involving different mental activities 
should reUeve one another. This is especially important 



DAILY PROGRAMME IN RELATION TO WASTE 287 

in relation to the mental and motor branches. If a 
pupil has to prepare five studies during the day, three of 
which require much writing and the other two none at 
all, it would doubtless be best for him to put the non- 
writing subjects between the others, so that the cerebral 
motor regions employed in the writing may perform the 
required tasks without overstrain. 

Finally a word may be said respecting the hours of the 
day which can best be spent in study, and the hours that 
can best be devoted to particular exercises. Testimonies 
recently gained from several hundred students in the 
University of Wisconsin showed that the majority could 
work most efifectively in the forenoon ; ^ and this accords 
with results reached by Barnes in his study of the habits 
of Cornell students, and also with the testimony of ex- 
perience and common sense. The best hours range 
from seven to twelve in the forenoon, while the choicest 
period of the day is from nine to eleven; and it would 
seem that the studies demanding the greatest concen- 
tration of attention should come at this time.^ If the 
available energy is not used in profitable ways it will 
doubtless be expended in fruitless activities. It would 
also appear that when children begin their work at nine 

* Of course there were some "night workers," who were dull during 
the morning hours. Recent investigation seems to show that there are 
persons whose energies are at flood tide in the late evening; but in each 
case this may be the outcome of habit, and not of natural constitution. 

* Cf. Mosso, op. cit., Chap. XI. 



288 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

in the morning little can be accomplished by keeping 
them at their tasks beyond half past eleven at the longest, 
without a considerable intermission, during which they 
may take food. To attempt to keep the children together 
after this hour will be likely to do more harm than good. 
They are usually restless in mind and body, and are apt 
to make many errors which require constant correction, 
and this always involves waste. 

This question of errors in school work has been studied 
by a number of investigators, and most of them have 
found that the fewest mistakes are made in the first hours 
of morning and afternoon, and they are most numerous 
during the last hours. It will be enough, perhaps, to give 
Friedrich's conclusions here:^ i. "The quality of work 
done by school children decreases with the increase of the 
school hours. The best work is done at the beginning of 
the school session and the poorest at its close. 2. If 
we compare the work of the morning session with that of 
the afternoon, the quaHty of the former is in every in- 
stance better. Even a three hours' intermission at noon 
is not sufficient to reinstate the freshness of the morning. 
At the close of a two hours' session in the afternoon the 
children are in a worse condition than at the close of a 
three hours' morning session. 3. The influence of a 

* Friedrich's method of investigation, together with some of his tables, 
are summarized by Patrick, " Studies in Psychology," Vol. I, pp. 80-84. 
See also Binet and Henri, op. cit., pp. 294 ff. 



DAILY PROGRAMME IN RELATION TO WASTE 289 

recess is in every instance to increase the quality of the 
work, and in a three hours' session two recesses increase 
it more than one. For instance, one recess at ten de- 
creases the errors at eleven from 162 to 152, and two re- 
cesses, at ten and nine, decrease them to 96. In addition 
to these results, the author compared the quality of the work 
done in the first half of each experiment with that of the sec- 
ond half, with the result that the best work was uniformly 
done in the former. It will be remembered that the 
dictation exercises required thirty minutes and the number 
exercises twenty minutes. Finally, though the author 
himself does not call especial attention to this fact, it 
may be seen from Table i, that the quahty of mental 
work was lowered and not raised by an hour's instruction 
in gymnastics from two to three p.m. and indeed lowered 
very remarkably. This appears to have been work for 
the children and not rest or play. 

" The author's practical conclusions are as follows : — 
School instruction is for the mentally and physically 
growing child work, and consumes his mental energy. 
If it becomes overwork, it checks his mental and physical 
development. It is shown by these and other experi- 
ments, and insisted on now by many educators, that short 
intensive study hours are better than long ones. Es- 
pecially with children in the lower grades, fatigue in- 
creases very rapidly with the continuation of instruction. 
The child should be granted a recess of from eight to 



290 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

fifteen minutes after every sixty minutes, the time to be 
spent in attention to bodily needs, to rest, and to the tak- 
ing of nourishment. The severer studies should find a 
place in the earlier morning hours. Whether there should 
be any afternoon session at all is questionable. At any 
rate, only light exercises, such as penmanship, singing, 
etc., should be permitted in the afternoon." ^ 
The result of Lombard has made a study of the rhythm ^ in the energic 
Lombard and Conditions of one individual throughout a single day, 

Smedley. 

and although disturbing factors, such as the influence of 
alcohol, tobacco, and food, make his data in a measure 
unreliable, still his curve (Fig. 35) is at least suggestive 
when taken in connection with the testimonies referred 
to above. Investigations made upon school children in 
Madison, under my direction, show practically the same 
rhythm ; and more careful studies made under the super- 
vision of the Child Study Department of the Chicago 
Public Schools have yielded results in general accord 
with those given, as Figs. 36, 37, and 38 show.^ Fig. 36 

* Patrick, loc. cit. 

* In this connection, see a very careful and valuable study on " Pe- 
riodicity and Progressive Change in Continuous Mental Work," by 
Seashore and Kent, Psych. Rev., March, 1905 ; and Monograph Supple- 
ment, Univ. of Iowa Studies in Psych., No. 4. 

* As I pointed out in Chapter XII, modern research has led us to place 
less confidence than we did originally in the results of these studies, as 
revealing genuine conditions of fatigue ; but it cannot be denied that they 
indicate a certain rhythm, however this has been established, in pupils' 
activities which, to say the least, is very suggestive to the teacher. 



DAILY PROGRAMME IN RELATION TO WASTE 29I 

shows the "course of power" for a school day in the case 
of a single pupil, which was determined by causing her 
to lift a weight of three kilograms at the hours indicated. 




Fig. 35. — Showing at each hour of the day and night how many centimeters 
a weight of 3000 grams could be raised by repeated voluntary contrac- 
tions of the forefinger before fatigue set in. The curve is highest at 10 to 
II A. M. and 10 to II P. M. Lowest at 3 to 4 P. M. and 3 to 4 A. M. Circle 
with dot, observation made just after taking food ; square with dot, smok- 
ing;* work done eight minutes after drinking fifteen cubic centimeters of 
whisky. — Donaldson after Lombard. 



The weight was raised over a pulley by flexion of the middle 
finger once every two seconds for forty-five times. Fig. 37 
shows the course of power for eight pupils tested in the 
same way at intervals of three quarters of an hour through- 
out the school day. Fig. 38 shows the results of testing 
eleven hundred pupils by this method. It can be readily 



292 



THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 



seen that the flood and ebb periods, at least the large 
rhythms, are remarkably similar in all cases. 

TTME Vni R -X XT Xll I 11 111 IIll 



WORK fN 

KILOGRAM 

-CENTIMETERS 



SCO 



r5o 























^ 
















^ 


















\ 




/\ 


V-^ 


A 








V 


/ 

1 




v^ 


\ 



Fig. 36. — Course of power through the school day as determined by the 
ergographic records made by No. 498. 

Data. — TpE weight, 3 kg., was lifted once in two seconds 

FOR 90 SECONDS. 



Time of Test 


9.00 9.47 


10.40 


11.30 


12.18 
180 


1.34 
219 


2.20 
198 


2.13 
207 


3.35 


Work Done (kg. cm.) 


240 J249 


243 


189 


183 



(Report on Child Study Investigation, Chicago Public Schools.) 
Time vm "ix x xi "xit i 11 11 1 m^ 



WORK IN 
KILOGRAM 
CENTIMETERS 
260 



?00 



180 























\ 






/V_ 












\ 


/ 


/^N. 


"^ 


^ 








s 


V 

























Fig. 37. — Course of power throughout a school day as determined by the 
average ergographic records of eight pupils of the Alcott School. 



DAILY PROGRAMME IN RELATION TO WASTE 



293 



Data. — Eight pupils (4 boys and 4 girls) were each tested 

NINE times during THE DAY. EACH TEST CONSISTED OF 90 
seconds' WORK. A WEIGHT OF 3 KG. WAS LIFTED EVERY 
OTHER SECOND. 



Av. Time of Tests 


8.51 


9-37 


10.32 


11.20 


2.07 


1.23 


2.08 


3.00 


34-5 


Av. Work Done (kg. cm.) 


262 


263 


249 


229 


212 


243 


234 


228 


224 



(Report of Child Study Investigation, Chicago Public Schools.) 



VIII 



■XII 



nil 



240 









































A 




/ 


^ 


»^ 








s 


\ ,/ 


/ 




\ 



















t80 

Fig. 38. — Course of power determined from the ergographic records of 
eleven hundred twenty-seven pupils of the Alcott School. 

Data. — Each test lasted 90 seconds. The weight, which 

WAS SEVEN PER CENT OF THE PUPIL'S WEIGHT, WAS LIFTED 
ONCE IN TWO SECONDS. 



Av. Time of Tests 


9-35 
242 


10.32 


11.28 


12.11 


1.51 
227 


2.31 
229 


3.21 


Av. Work Done (kg. cm.) 


237 


231 


204 


218 



(Report on Child Study Investigation, Chicago Public Schools.) 

As a last w^ord it may be added that some time ago the French 

regulations. 

Societe d^Hygihie de Genhve formulated rules relating to 

education to the effect ^ that "the first hours in the morn- 

.* See Guyau, "Education and Heredity," pp. 139-140. 



294 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

ing should be devoted to those subjects demanding most 
intellectual effort. Lessons should be broken off every 
hour for recreation, allowing each pupil opportunity for 
bodily exercise." Guyau goes on to say that "the Aca- 
ddmie de Medecine appointed a Commission to find a 
remedy for intellectual overpressure. This Commission 
drew up a report; the principal items affecting primary 
education were as follows : ' From three to eight hours 
per day, according to the child's age, should be the limit 
of intellectual work. Twenty to thirty minutes should 
be the outside length of each lesson for children; the 
syllabus should be reduced in proportion to the length 
of the lessons and time of preparation; at present the 
examinations cover far too wide a ground, are too encyclo- 
pedic; partial and frequent examinations should be sub- 
stituted for them, limiting the intellectual strain. ... It 
is necessary to devote, according to age, from six to ten 
hours a day to physical exercise (games, walks, drills, 
etc.).' " 

TOPICS FOR INVESTIGATION AND DISCUSSION 

I. Give as much attention as you possibly can to the fol- 
lowing question : Are children's diseases more common during 
school sessions than during vacation? If you can do so, in- 
vestigate this matter in reference to particular cases, and note 
what troubles, if any, increase when children begin school, and 
what are probably the causes therefor. 



DAILY PROGRAMME IN RELATION TO WASTE 295 

2. Make observations upon the children in your neighbor- 
hood in the efifort to find out how much time they spend out of 
doors in play or work when school is in session. Compare 
this amount with that spent out of doors during vacation. 
What inferences may be drawn from your observations ? 

3. Are the school buildings in your neighborhood in the 
vicinity of playgrounds where the pupils may exercise at recess ? 
If not, how do they secure relaxation during the school day ? 

4. Comment on the following situation : The school build- 
ing is located on a busy street, but is surrounded by a strip of 
green grass. The teachers forbid the pupils stepping on the 
grass ; and they also warn them against being a nuisance on the 
street. They must keep out of the way of pedestrians and 
vehicles, and they must not shout or make any noise which 
will disturb residents or passers-by. Further, the pupils are 
forbidden under heavy penalties to run or play or shout within 
the building during intermissions. 

5. Comment on the plan of some teachers of keeping pupils 
in at intermissions and after school at night as a penalty for 
violation of rules, or as a punishment for failure to "learn their 
lessons." 

6. Should gymnastic exercises be made a substitute for 
recesses ? Why ? 

7. Make out a typical daily programme showing how a pupil 
should spend his time in the primary school; in the grammar 
school; in the high school. 

8. Make out a typical daily programme, showing the se- 
quence of studies in the elementary, grammar, and high school, 
with reasons therefor. 

9. Study a school in which pupils are held for long periods, 
two hours, say, without any recesses. Note whether toward 



296 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

the close of this period pupils are as attentive to their work and 
as accurate in it as when they began. Note whether they are 
more or less restless than at the opening of the period. 

10. When bright and dull pupils are taught in the same 
classes, what methods should be adopted to avoid keeping the 
bright pupils in their seats while the dull ones are plodding their 
weary way ? 



CHAPTER XIX 

RESUME 

The physical organism, regarded from one standpoint, 
is a contrivance for generating energy needed for the 
support of all activity, whether physical or mental. When 
the stock of available energy in the organism at any 
time is depleted beyond a given point then serious dis- 
turbances must ensue. In a fatigued condition one 
cannot accompHsh as much ordinarily as when he is 
refreshed. His perception, his memory, his reason, are 
rendered less keen and ready and accurate ; his endurance 
in labor of any sort is lessened; he cannot perform tasks 
demanding the finest and most exact motor coordinations. 
Some pupils will become unduly tense in all their actions, 
while others will grow lethargic and indifferent. Rest- 
lessness and irritabihty will take possession of a school- 
room under such conditions. 

If one is to attain the greatest efficiency, he must use 
his energy economically; he must avoid all practices 
that squander his resources. Needless motor tensions 
drain off the vital forces without accomplishing anything, 
and they must be reduced to the minimum. And first 

297 



298 THE ENERGIC FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

of all by changing the state of mind which begets them. 
Worry, fear, self-consciousness, overscrupulousness, dis- 
sipate energy. Teachers especially need to bathe their 
spirits freely in the best books, the best art, the best music, 
and the best social hfe. They should keep an eye on 
their pupils, too, and seek to encourage in them habitual 
attitudes of courage and hope and joyfulness. It should 
be the aim to do one's work without wasteful muscu- 
lar tensions. Usually tasks requiring very fine adjust- 
ments entail waste, and they should not be undertaken 
when unnecessary. It is the teacher's duty to banish 
from the schoolroom all implements, in the manage- 
ment of which there is demanded precise coordination, 
where coarser activities would answer just as well. Very 
fine writing or sewing or weaving and the like should 
be abohshed. All the equipments of the school, especially 
the seats, must be chosen with the end in view to reduce 
to the lowest point the waste of nervous energy in pupils. 
Defective eyes must be attended to; if they are let go 
they will, in most cases, unfit the individual for really 
vigorous and efficient activity. Finally, well-poised, 
calm- voiced, and. calm-featured teachers, who are at the 
same time positive and definite and, in short, strong, 
are the most important pieces of apparatus that can be 
placed in any schoolroom, regarded from the standpoint 
of the conservation of the nervous energy of pupils. 
In arranging the daily programme it should be the aim 



RESUME 299 

to have pupils give concentrated attention for brief periods 
only to the work in hand. One hour of real hard w^ork 
is worth three of mind- wandering, and it is far more con- 
servative of vital forces. Some account should be taken 
of the "course of power" in the day, and an effort should 
be made to get all school work done while the energies 
are at flood tide. Especial pains should be taken to so ar- 
range the programme that it will not be necessary to hold 
pupils to their tasks when the waning of their powers 
leads to relaxed attention, so that they fall into frequent 
errors, and thus put themselves into an unhappy relation 
toward their environment. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The principal authors discussed or referred to on preceding pages are 
named below, and the pages on which they appear are given. It is the aim 
primarily in this list to indicate suitable literature for a course of reading 
in connection with the various topics considered in this volume. The ref- 
erences suitable mainly for the specialist, who is interested principally in 
the scientific side of the subject, are designated by S; those suitable for 
persons interested mainly in practical matters, and who have had some train- 
ing in psychology and allied sciences, are designated by F ; those which every 
teacher can and should read, no matter what has been his training, are 
designated by T. 

1. Allin: Social Recapitulation. Educ. Rev., Vol. XVIII. 

(s. P.) (154). 

2. Anderson: Hack Tuke's Dictionary of Psychological 
Medicine, Vol. I. (S.) (194). 

3. Angell: Psychology. (P. T.) (11), 

4. Habit and Attention. Psych. Rev., Vol. Ill, 

245 £f., and V, 179 £f. (S. P.) (11). 

5. Angell and Thompson: The Relation between Certain 
Organic Processes and Consciousness. Psych. Rev., Jan., 
1899. (S.) (17s). 

6. Aristotle: Politics, Book VII, 17. (P. T.) (220). 

7. Bagley: The Educative Process. (P. T.) (5,8). 

8. Bain: The Emotions and the Will. (P. T.) (88). 

9. Bair: Development of Voluntary Control. Psych. 
Rev., Sept., 1901. (S. P.) (88, 92). 

10. Baird: The Influence of Accommodation and Con- 
vergence upon the Perception of Depth. Am. Journ. of 
Psych., Vol. XIV. (S.) (97). 

301 



302 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

11. Baldwin: Mental Development; Methods and Pro- 
cesses. (S. P.) (3, 88, III). 

12. Journ. of Ped., June, 1901. (P. T.) (160). 

13. Inland Educator, Vols. II and III. (P. T.) (6). 

14. Ballantyne: Lancet for 1890, Vol. II. (S.) (277). 

15. Balliet: Address before Massachusetts Teachers' 
Association at Worcester, Mass., Nov. 30, 1895. (P. S.) (60). 

16. Bancroft: Automatic Muscular Movements among the 
Insane. Am. Journ. of Psych., Vol. III. (S.) (20). 

17. Phys. Ed. Rev., Vol. VII. (P. T.) (279). 

18. Barnes: Studies in Education. (P. T.) (iii). 

19. Bateman: Aphasia and the Localization of the Faculty 
of Speech. (S. P.) (21). 

20. Beard: Neurasthenia. (S. P.) (177). 

21. Bell: Independent, Vol. 55. (T.) (3). 

22. Bergstrom: Am. Journ. of Psych., Vol. VI. (S.) 
(189). 

23. Binet and Henri : La Fatigue Intellectuelle. (S.) (176, 
183, 184, 288). 

24. Bolton, F. E. : Facts and Fiction in Educational Values. 
School Rev., Feb., 1904. (T.) (41, 75). 

25. Bolton, Thaddeus: The Relation of Motor Power to 
Intelligence. Am. Journ. of Psych., Vol. XIV. (S. P.) (32). 

26. Psych. Rev., Vol. VIL (S. P.) (181). 

27. Breese: On Inhibition. Psych. Rev. Mon. SuppL, 
Vol. Ill, 1899-1901. (S. P.) (15, 28, 31). 

28. Briggs: Atlantic Monthly, Oct., 1900. (T.) (27). 

29. Broadbent : Hughlings- Jackson. Brain; Autumn, 1903, 
(S. P.) (128). 

30. Browne : Relation of the Nervous System to Education. 
(S. P.) (151). 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 303 

31. Bryan: The Development of Voluntary Motor Ability. 
Am. Journ. of Psych., Vol. V, p. 123. (S. P.) (134, 189). 

32. Add. and Proc. N. E. A., 1897. (P. T.) (195). 

33. Burk: Ped. Sem., Vol. IX. (S. P.) (iii). 

34. From Fundamental to Accessory. Ped. Sem., 

Vol. VI; also Reprint. (S. P.) (128, 134, 147). 

35. The Influence of Exercise upon Growth. (T.) 

(152). 

36. Biirgerstein: Zeit. flir Schulgesundheitspflege, 1891. 

(S.) (184). 

37. Burnham: Ped. Sem., June, 1892. (P. T.) (252). 

38. Call: Power through Repose. Atlantic Monthly, Feb., 
1895. (T.) (218). 

39. Campbell: Differences in the Nervous Organization 
of Man and Woman. (S.) (207). 

40. Chamberlain : The Child, a Study in the Evolution of 
Man. (P. T.) (in). 

41. Chase: Neuro- muscular Development. Elementary 
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42. Clark: The Child's Attitude toward Perspective Prob- 
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43. Cohn: Hygiene of the Eye. (S.) (265, 267). 

44. Collin: Papers in Penology, 1891. (S. P.) (207). 

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46. Committee of Twelve of the Modern Language Asso- 
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304 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

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51. Curtis: Inhibition. Ped. Sem., Vol. VI, p. 93. (P. T.) 

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52. Darwin: Descent of Man. (S. P.) (172). 

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3o6 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

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127. Journ. of Phys., Vol. XIII. (S.) (188). 



3o8 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

128. Lotze: Microcosmus. (S.) (172). 

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130. Ped. Sem., Vol. XIII, 1894-1896. (S. P.) (141). 

131. MacDougall: Inhibition; Brain, Summer, 1903. 
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132. Psych. Rev., March, 1899. (S.) (193). 

133. McMurry: Add. and Proc. N. E. A., 1904. (T.) (41). 
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134. Maggiora: Ped. Sem., Vol. II, No. i. (S. P.) (173). 

135. Archiv. flir Anat. und Physiologie, 1890. (189). 

136. Meath: Pubhc Playgrounds for Children, 19th Cent., 
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137. Mercier: Sanity and Insanity. (S. P.) (142, 143). 

138. Mercier: The Nervous System and the Mind, Chaps. 
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139. Meyer: Summarized by Burnham. (S. P. T.) (252). 

140. Mills: Mental Overwork and Premature Disease 
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141. Moore, Mrs.: Child Study Mo. (S. P. T.) (126). 

142. Morgan: Psychology for Teachers. (P.) (84). 

143. Psych. Rev., March-May, 1905. (S. P.) (18). 

144. Morris: Book of Health. (P. T.) (151). 

145. Mosso: Ped. Sem., Vol. II, No. i. (P. T.) (173). 

146. Fear. (S. P.) (175). 

147. Ueber die Gesetze der Ermiidung, Archiv fiir 

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148. Fatigue, translated by Drummond and Drum- 

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149. Mumford: Brain, Vol. XX. (P. T.) (129). 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 309 

150. Mlinsterberg: Atlantic Monthly, May, 1900. (T.) 

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151. and Campbell: Psych. Rev., Vol. I, 441 ff. 

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152. Music, Utility of. Forum, Vol. XXV. (P. T.) (231). 

153. Music as Medicine. Music, Vol. XV. (S. P. T.) (231). 

154. Oppenheim: The Development of the Child. (T.) 
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155. O'Shea: Education as Adjustment. (S. P.) (8, 75). 

156. Aspects of Mental Economy, Chap. I. (S. P.) 

(23)- 

157. Add. and Proc. N. E. A., 1894. (T.) (iii). 

158. When Character is Formed. Pop. Sci. Mo., 

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159. Physical Culture in the PubHc Schools. At- 
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160. The Right Physical Start in Education. World's 

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161. Children's Expression through Drawing. Add. 

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162. Paget, Charles: Journ. of Educ. (English), Oct., 1884. 
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163. Patrick: Should Children under Ten Years Learn to 
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164. Studies in Psychology, Vol. I. (S.) (288, 290). 

165. Perez: The First Three Years of Childhood, trans- 
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166. Plato: Laws, I; Rep. VII. (P. T.) (220, 232). 

167. Prentice: The Eye in Relation to Health. (S. P.) 
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3IO BIBLIOGRAPHY 

i68. Preyer: The Mind of the Child, Vol. I. (S. P.) 
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169. Ranney: Eye Strain in Health and Disease. (S. P.) 
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170. Reformatory Year Book (Elmira). (S. P.) (61). 

171. Reeder: The Historical Development of School 
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172. Ribot: The Psychology of the Emotions. (S. P.) 
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173. Diseases of the Will. (S. P.) (143). 

174. Diseases of Memory. (S. P.) (204). 

175. Rice: The PubHc School System of the United States. 

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176. Richardson: Diseases of Modern Life. (S. P.) 

(177)- 

177. Romanes: Mental Evolution of Man. (S.) (172). 

178. Ross: Diseases of the Nervous System. (S.) (128). 

179. Rowe: The Physical Nature of the Child and how to 
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180. Royce: Outhnes of Psychology. (P. T.) (13, 30). 

181. Imitation. Century, Vol. XLVIII. (P. T.) 

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182. Russell: Child Observations: Imitation and AUied 
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183. Scripture: Manual Training Mag., Vol. I, No. i. 
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185. Educ. Rev., Vol. XV. (P. T.) (173). 

186. Seashore and Kent: Periodicity and Progressive 



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187. Seguin: Idiocy and its Treatment by the Physio- 
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191. Sigismund: Kind und Welt, die fiinf ersten Perioden 
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(153)- 

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197. Am. Phys. Edu. Rev., 1899. (S. P.) (266). 

198. Psychology and Pedagogy of Learning. (S. P.) 

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199. Thorndike: Educational Psychology. (S.) (75). 

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312 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

206. Wey: Papers in Penology. (S. P.) (207). 

207. Williams: The Chemistry of Cooking. (P. T.) (224). 

208. Wilson: Drunkenness. (S. P.) (22, 142). 

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(55, 71)- 

211. Woodworth: Psych. Rev., Vol. IX. (S. P.) (188, 
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212. Wright: Am. Journ. of Neurology and Psychiatry, 
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213. Wundt: Human and Animal Psychology. (S. P.) 
(172). 



INDEX 

In referring to authors the Bibliography should be consulted in connection 
with this Index. 



Activity, as expending energy, 170- 
186; familiar evidence, 173-174; 
experimental evidence, 175-176; 
physiological evidence, 176-178. 

Adaptive activities, method of acquir- 
ing, 81-97 ; helplessness of the infant, 
81 ; impulsive or spontaneous move- 
ments, 81-82; infant's reactions 
characterized by lack of specific 
appropriateness, 83-84 ; the first step 
in gaining adaptive activities, 85-89 ; 
adaptive action in the making, 86-87 '. 
the infant's first essays in grasping, 
87 ; the factors focal in conscious- 
ness, 88-89; example of acquiring 
adaptive movements, 90-91 ; exces- 
sive action essential to learning, 91- 
92; learning as a process of differ- 
entiation, 92-93; advance through 
experimentation, or play, or curiosity, 
94; integration of simple acts into 
complex adjustments, 94-96 ; adap- 
tive activities not learned de novo, 

96-97. 

Adjustments, integration of simple 
acts into complex, 94-96. 

Adler, views on manual training in 
education, 55-56. 

.ffisthesiometric method of studying 
fatigue, 182. 

.Esthetic influences, effect of, upon 
mental tension, 230-244; effect of 
music, 231-233 ; Lyon on thera- 
peutic value of music, 231-232; 
Draper on value of music, 232 ; 
Shakespeare on the psychology of 
music, 233 ; responsiveness of the 
organism to all stimulation, 234; 
effect of different forms, 235-239; 



Witmer on the enjoyment of differ- 
ent forms, 235-238 ; effect of form 
upon vital processes, 238-239 ; effect 
of color, 239-242 ; individual differ- 
ences in color choice, 240-241 ; 
Edwards on the therapeutic value 
of color, 241-242 ; principles govern- 
ing schoolroom decoration, 242-244. 

Americanitis, 213-214. 

Apperception, in imitative activities, 
103-104. 

Arithmetic, dynamic aspect of, 41-43. 

Arrest in development, 152-153. 

Attention, specialization of, with de- 
velopment, 16-17 ; depends on de- 
velopment of cerebral cortex, 17 ; 
effect of fatigue on, 200-202. 

Bagley, definition of education, 5. 

Baldwin on motor character of child- 
life, 3. 

Bell, observations on children, 3. 

Bryan, on the development of precision, 
134- 

Central movements, most prominent 
in the beginning, 125-127. 

Cerebral cortex, development of, in 
relation to specialization of attention, 
17 ; theory of development reen- 
forces principles derived from obser- 
vation of children, 18-19; need of 
exercising motor areas, 29. 

Color, effect of, on mental tension, 239- 
242; individual differences in color 
choice, 240-241; Edwards on the 
therapeutic value of, 241-242. 

Committee of Ten, quoted on linguis- 
tic teaching, 46. 



zn 



314 



INDEX 



Complexity, meaning of, in manual 
activities, 71-73. 

Concentration of attention, for brief 
periods, 282-283; span of, 284-285; 
short exposure with strong stimula- 
tion, 285-286. 

Consciousness, factors focal in, in 
acquiring adaptive activities, 88-89. 

Contemplation, motor factors in, 7. 

Coordinated activities, development 
of, 122-144; the incoordinated con- 
dition of the infant, 122-123 > coordi- 
nation vs. crude strength, 123-124; 
inherited coordinations, 124-125; 
central movements predominate in 
the beginning, 125-127; tensions, 
coordination, 126; the first stages in 
acquiring manual dexterity, 127-128 ; 
differences in rate of acquiring coor- 
dinated activities, 128-129 ; develop- 
ment from within outward, 129-130; 
progress of development at different 
periods, 131; vigor rather than deli- 
cacy of adjustment, 132; the effect 
of development on muscularity, 132- 
133; force z/j. precise manipulation, 
133-144; Bryan on the development 
of precision, 134; development of 
pedal dexterity, 134-137; rigidity 
characteristic of early efforts at walk- 
ing, kicking, climbing, 136 ; develop- 
ment of speech coordination, 137- 
141 ; the simplest sounds imitated 
first, 137-138 ; examples of mutila- 
tions due to immaturity in coordina- 
tion, 138-139; the principle of 
development illustrated in child's use 
of sentences, 139-140; Preyer on 
development of coordination in 
speech, 140-141 ; the order of losing 
coordinated activities in degenera- 
tion, 142-144 ; the order in inebriety, 
142-143; in senescence, 143; effect 
of fatigue on, 192-194; excessively 
fine work as cause of waste of energy, 
246-248 ; too precise work in writing, 
248-250. 
Copy-mindedness, development [ of, 
112-113. 



Criminals, effect of manual training 
on, 61-63. 

Daily programme, in relation to ner- 
vous waste, 276-294; overpressure 
in the schools, 276-277 ; the amount 
of work pupils of different ages 
should undertake, 277-279 ; less time 
in the schoolroom, 279-281 ; experi- 
ments on shorter sessions, 280-281 ; 
concentration for brief periods the 
requirement, 282-283 ; relaxation 
must follow application, 283-284; 
the span of concentrated attention, 
284-285 ; short exposure with strong 
stimulation the principle, 285-286; 
sequence of studies in, 286-287; ^^^ 
best hours for studies, 287-288 ; er- 
rors in school work due to fatigue, 
288-289; Fried rich on the arrange- 
ment of, 288-290; Lombard and 
Smedley on the daily energic rhythm, 
290-293 ; French regulations, 293-294. 

Deliberation, appearance of, in chil- 
dren, 5. 

Degeneration, effect of, on self-restraint, 
20-21 ; order of losing coordinated 
activities in, 142-144 ; attacks highest 
faculties first, 206-208. 

Development, of inhibition, 1-25; of 
deliberation in children, 5; of re- 
straint, 6-13 ; change that occurs in 
inhibition with, 9-10; specialization 
of attention with, 16-17 ; of cerebral 
cortex, 17 ; change in relation of 
motor to mental activities with, 79 ; 
effect of development on imitative 
activities, 107-108 ; of copy-minded- 
ness, 112-113; function of sponta- 
neous activities in development of 
perception of graphic forms, 116; of 
coordinated activities, 122-124; from 
within outward, 129-130 ; progress of, 
in coordinated activities at different 
periods, 131 ; effect of, on muscu- 
larity, 132-133; Bryan on develop- 
ment of precision, 134; of pedal 
dexterity, 134-137; of speech coor- 
dination, 137- 141; in child's use of 



INDEX 



315 



sentences, 139-140; Preyer on de- 
velopment of speech coordinations, 
140-141 ; arrest in, 152-153 ; neces- 
sary conditions for complete, 153- 
154 ; of peripheral activities, Judd 
on, 157-158. 

Differentiation, development of, in a 
child's activities, 5-6; essential in all 
learning, 92-93. 

Draper on the value of music, 232. 

Dullness, as caused by fatigue, 203-204. 

Dynamic education, necessity for, 
26-39 ; passing of the static ideal of 
education, 26-29 ; the new gospel 
preached by James, et al., 27-28 ; 
need of exercising cerebral motor 
areas, 29 ; training of feeble-minded 
children begins with the muscles, 
29; What is implied in utiderstatid- 
ing a thing ? 30-34 ; muscular knowl- 
edge fundamental, 31 ; impressions 
are hazy until reacted upon, 31 ; the 
mission of eye and ear, 32 ; effect of 
experience on motor reaction, 32- 
34 ; motor activity in the traditional 
schoolroom, 34-35 ; examples of ver- 
balism in teaching, 35 (Notes) ; re- 
form has begun in the kindergarten, 
36-37; the kindergarten is not yet 
wholly free, though, 37-38 ; the teach- 
ing of verbal patriotism, 38 ; dynamic 
education for citizenship, 39 ; dy- 
namic aspect of school studies, 41- 
53; dynamic aspect of arithmetic, as 
an instance, 41-43 ; the principle ap- 
plies to all studies, as writing, modern 
language, etc., 43 ; the change which 
has taken place in teaching reading, 
44-45 ; the principle applied to high 
school work, 45-52; Committee of 
Ten quoted on linguistic teaching, 
46; Can Latin, as an instance, be 
taught in a dynamic way ? 47 ; the 
static method is losing caste, 49; 
formalism in the teaching of science, 
50-52. 

Ear, mission of, in mental develop- 
ment, 32. 



Economy, in expenditure of energy, 
210-228 ; first great principle of, 214- 
216. 

Edwards on the therapeutic value of 
color, 241-242. 

Emotions, as influenced by fatigue, 
205-207. 

Energy, as expended by activity, 170- 
186 ; mind as the body's guest, 170- 
171; mind as matter, 171-172; 
energic relation of mind and body, 
172-173 ; familiar evidence that activ- 
ity expends energy, 173-174 ; experi- 
mental evidence, 175-176; physio- 
logical evidence, 176-178 ; theory of 
fatigue, 178 ; unusual interest in 
schoolroom fatigue, 180; methods of 
studying fatigue, 180-182; the ergo- 
graphic method, 180-181 ; the assthe- 
siomefric method, 182; the sphygmo- 
graphic method, 183; influence of 
intellectual effort on vital function, 
183-184; mental tests, 184-185 
sources of error in mental tests, 185 
economical expenditure of, 210-228 
loss of, in a machine, 210; loss of, 
from muscular tension, 211; loss 
of, from mental tension, 211-212 ; the 
hypochondriac a thriftless type, 213; 
waste of, in American life, 213-214; 
first great principle of economy in 
expenditure of, 214-216; James on 
" unclamping," 216-217; influence 
of bodily attitudes on tension, 217- 
219; play as a conserving agent, 
219-221 ; gymnastics and the conser- 
vation of energy, 220-222; exercise 
for brainworkers, 222-223 ; nutri- 
tion in relation to the generation of 
energy, 223-228; lack of energy 
caused by underfeeding, 224-225 ; 
the nutrition of school children, 
225-228. 

Ergographic method of studying fa- 
tigue, 180-181. 

Errors in school work due to fatigue, 
288-289. 

Excessive action essential to learning, 
91-92. 



3i6 



INDEX 



Exercise for brain workers, 222-223. 

Experimentation, as essential to learn- 
ing. 94- 

Eye, mission of, in mental develop- 
ment, 32. 

Eye defects, prevalence of, 269-270. 

Eye strain, Gould on the wastefulness 
of, 267-268 ; during adolescence, 
268-269 ■> waste from, as cause of 
dullness and irritability, 272-274. 

Fatigue, effect of, on motor restraint, 
23 ; theory of, 178 ; interest in school- 
room fatigue, 180; methods of 
studying, see Energy ; influence of, 
on efficiency of mind and body, 188- 
208 ; the nervous system as a storage 
battery, 188 ; effect of, on muscular 
action, 189-192; effect of, on motor 
coordination, 192-194; effect of, on 
muscular tension, 194-195 ; leaky 
nervous systems, 195 ; the " wasteful " 
type, 196-197 ; the " thrifty " type, 
197; method of testing individual 
differences in fatigue, 198-199; 
effect of fatigue on attention, 200- 
202; cause of dullness in school and 
outside, 203-204 ; influences memory 
detrimentally, 203; also reason, 204; 
effect of, on the emotions, 205-207 ; 
as a cause of irritability, 205 ; reduces 
inhibitory power, 206 ; incites melan- 
cholia, 206 ; affects the highest facul- 
ties first, 206-208. 

Feeble-minded children, method of 
training, 29. 

Force vs. precise manipulation, 133-134. 

Form, perception of movement before, 
113-114; function of spontaneous 
activities in developing perception 
of, 116. 

Formal discipline, through manual 
activities, 74-76; insecure founda- 
tions of the doctrine of, 75-76. 

Formalism in manual training, 65-66. 

Forms, effect of, on mental tension, 
235-239; Witmer on the enjoyment 
of, 235-238 ; effect of, upon vital 
processes, 238-239. 



French regulations regarding arrange- 
ment of daily programme, 293-294. 

Friedrich on the arrangement of daily 
programme, 288-289. 

Fundamental to accessory, in educa- 
tion, 146-161 ; traditional view of 
fine coordinations in early education, 
146-147 ; the natural order of pro- 
cedure, 148 ; the doctrine of nascent 
periods, 149-150; Hartwell, on train- 
ing of speech function, 149-151 ; the 
appropriate time to develop any 
power, 151-152; arrest in develop- 
ment, 152-153 ; necessary conditions 
for complete development, 153-154; 
the evil of too great haste or tardiness 
in education, 154-155; change in 
activities with development, 155 ; 
Judd on the development of pe- 
ripheral activities, 157-158, 

Gould on the wastefulness of eye strain, 
267-268. 

Gray, et al., views on manual activities 
in education, 58 (Notes). 

Gymnastics, relation to the conserva- 
tion of energy, 220-222. 

Hartwell on the training of speech 
function, 149-151. 

Haste in education, evil of, 154-155. 

"Hearing" as conditioned by motor 
habits, 117. 

High school, dynamic principle applied 
to work of, 45-52. 

Holmes on motor activity in child- 
hood, 4 (Note). 

Hypnotism, effect on motor restraint, 
21. 

Hypochondriac as a thriftless type, 
213. 

Imitative activities, method of ac- 
quiring, 99-108 ; phenomena of mim- 
icry, 99-100; the beginning of, loi- 
102; apperception in, 103-104; the 
principle holds for adult imitation, 
104-105; psychology of, 105-106; 



INDEX 



317 



effect of development upon, 107- 
108 ; in speech, 137-138. 
Impressions, hazy until reacted upon^ 

31- 

Impulsive movements, 81-82. 

Individual differences in fatigue, 
method of testing, 198-199. 

Inebriety, effect on motor restraint, 
22-23 ; order of losing coordinated 
activities in, 142-145. 

Infant, helplessness of, 81 ; character 
of reactions, 83-84; first essays in 
grasping, 87 ; incoordinated con- 
dition of, 122-123. 

Inherited coordinations, 124-125. 

Inhibition, the development of, 1-25 ; 
the lack of, in children, i ; the 
excesses of children, as portrayed in 
literature, 2 ; as observed by Preyer, 
et al., 3 ; Baldwin on, 3 ; Bell's 
observations on, 3; Holmes quoted 
on, 4 (Note) ; effect of motor 
restraint on mental activity, 4-6 ; 
the appearance of deliberation in 
children, 5; Bagley's definition of 
education, 5 ; the motif ol the child's 
actions, 5 ; action is at first undiffer- 
entiated, 5-6; restraint comes with 
development, 6-13; what con- 
templation implies, 7; example of 
organic factors in " thinking," 7 ; 
children "act out" what they 
appreciate, 7-8 ; the change that 
occurs in development, 9-10; how 
the principle in question applies in 
adult life, lo-ii ; how children of 
different ages will respond to the 
situations depicted in Kipling's 
"Jungle Book," as an instance, 11- 
12; the neurological view of in- 
hibition, 13-20; How long can 
children inhibit all motor activity ? 
13; relation of, to elaborateness of 
mental processes, 14-15; Bresse 
quoted on, 14-15 (Note) ; specializa- 
tion of attention with development, 
16-17; depends on development of 
cerebral cortex, 17 ; theory of brain 
development reenforces principles 



derived from observation of children, 
18-19 ; teleology of impulsive action 
at the outset, 19; motor character 
of child-life exhibited during sleep, 
19-20; suggestions gained from the 
phenomena of degeneration, 20-23 ; 
disintegration leads to lessened 
self-restraint, 20-21 ; hypnotism 
reduces inhibitory power, 21 ; so 
does inebriety, 22-23 ; and fatigue, 
23, 206. 

Interests, the child's first absorb- 
ing, 59-60; manual training must 
follow the lead of the child's, 65-70. 

Irritability, as caused by fatigue, 205. 

James, view of dynamic education, 
27-28; views on manual training, 
56-58. 

Judd, on the development of peripheral 
activities, 157-158. 

Kindergarten, reform has begun in, 
36-37 ; not wholly free, 37-38. 

Kirkpatrick, views on logical vs. psy- 
chological order in teaching, 68. 

Latin, dynamic method in teaching, 

47- 
Lens, waste from maladjustment of, 

266-267. 
Literature, depicting excesses of 

children, 2. 
Lombard, on the daily energic rhythm, 

290-293. 
Lyon, on the therapeutic value of 

music, 231-232. 

Manual activities, their place in 
education, 54-63 ; current views of, 
54-58 ; Adler's view, 55-56 ; James's 
view, 56-58 ; views of Gray, White, 
and Marble, 58 (Notes) ; view of a 
present-day experimental psycholo- 
gist, 59 ; the child's first absorbing 
interest, 59-60 ; viewed from psycho- 
logical and neurological standpoints, 
60-61 ; effect of, on young criminals, 
61-63; must follow the lead of the 



3i8 



INDEX 



child's interests, 65-70; formalism in, 
65-66; the logical z'j. the psychological 
order in, 66-68 ; Kirkpatrick's view, 
68 ; recapitulation in, 68-70 ; from 
the simple to the complex in, 70-71; 
the meaning of " simplicity " vs. 
" complexity " in, 71-73 ; crude work 
first, aesthetic work last, 73-74; 
formal discipline through manual 
training, 74-76 ; the insecure founda- 
tions of the doctrine, 75-76 : the true 
principle illustrated in athletics, 
76-77; physical virtues applied to 
social situations, 77-79 ; with develop- 
ment manual must give way to 
mental activities, 79. 

Manual dexterity, first stages in ac- 
quiring, 127-128. 

Melancholia, as incited by fatigue, 206. 

Memory, as influenced detrimentally 
by fatigue, 203. 

Mental activity, relation of, to motor 
restraint, 4-6 ; increase of, with de- 
velopment over manual activities, 79. 

Mental tests for fatigue, see Energy. 

Methods of studying fatigue, see £«- 

Mind, as the body's guest, 170-171; as 
matter, vji-x^t, ; energic relation to 
body, 172-173. 

Modem language, dynamic aspect 
of, 43- 

Motor habits, as conditioning " see- 
ing," 116-117; and " hearing," 117. 

Motorreaction, effect of experience on, 
32-34 ; in the traditional schoolroom, 

34-35- 
Motor restraint, relation of, to mental 
activity, 4-6; comes with develop- 
ment, 6-13 ; children " act out " what 
they appreciate, 7-8 ; the principle 
in adult life, lo-ii ; the duration of 
complete inhibition of motor activity, 
13; depends on elaborateness of 
mental processes, 14-15 ; teleology 
of impulsive action at the outset, 19 ; 
during sleep, 19-21 ; is lessened in 
degeneration, 20-21 ; in hypnotism, 
21 ; in inebriety, 22-23 '> i"^ fatigue, 
23. See Inhibition. 



Movement, perception of, before form, 

113-114. 
Muscular action, effect of fatigue on, 

189-192. 
Muscularity, effect of development on, 

132-133. 
Muscular knowledge, fundamental in 

understanding, 21. 
Muscular tension, effect of fatigue 

on, 194-195. 
Music, effect of, on mental tension, 

231-233 ; Lyon, on the therapeutic 

value of, 231-232; Draper, on the 

value of, 232; Shakespeare, on the 

psychology of, 233, 
Mutilations, in child's use of words 

due to immaturity in coordination, 

138-139- 

Nascent periods, doctrine of, 149-150. 

Nervous system, as a storage bat- 
tery, 188 ; " wasteful " type of, 195 ; 
" thrifty " type of, 197. 

Neurological view of inhibition, 13-20. 

Noise as a source of waste of energy, 
259-261. 

Nutrition in relation to the generation 
of energy, 223-228 ; of school chil- 
dren, 225-228. 

Ocular muscles, waste from malad- 
justment of, 263-273. 

Order, logical vs. psychological, in 
teaching, 66-68 ; Kirkpatrick on, 68 ; 
from the simple to the complex in 
manual activities, 70-71. 

Organic factors, examples of, in 
" thinking," 7. 

Overpressure, in the schools, 276-277. 

Overstimulation, as a source of waste 
of energy, 255-256. 

Pedal dexterity, development of, 134- 

137- 
Physical virtues, applied to social 

situations, 77-79. 
Play, as a conserving agent, 219-221. 
Postures, as a source of waste of 

energy, 252-255. 
Prayer, et al., on lack of inhibition 'v\ 



INDEX 



319 



children, 3 ; on development of coor- 
dination in speech, 140-141. 
Psychology, of imitative activities, 
105-106. 

Reading, the change which has taken 
place in method of teaching, 44-45. 

Reason, as influenced detrimentally by 
fatigue, 204. 

Recapitulation in manual activities, 
68-70. 

Relaxation must follow application, 
283-284. 

Rigidity, characteristic of early ef- 
forts in walking, climbing, kicking, 
136. 

Schoolroom, less time in, 279-281. 

Schoolroom arts, the teaching of, i lo- 
ng; the scribble stage in, iio-iii; 
the development of copy-minded- 
ness, 112-113; perception of move- 
ment before form, 113-114; writing 
a form of adaptive activity, 115; the 
function of spontaneous activities in 
developing perception of graphic 
form, 116; "seeing "as conditioned 
by motor habits, 116-117; the prin- 
ciple applies to " hearing " as well, 
117; dissociating eye- and ear- 
motor complexes, 118; method of 
teaching, 118-119. 

Schoolroom decoration, principles gov- 
erning, 242-244. 

School studies, dynamic aspect of, 41- 

53- 
Science, formalism in the teaching of, 

50-52- 

Scribble stage, in acquiring school- 
room arts, iio-iii. 

Seeing, as conditioned by motor habits, 
116-117. 

Senescence, order of losing coordinated 
activities in, 143. 

Sentences, child's use of, illustrating 
development of coordinated activi- 
ties, 139-140. 

Shakespeare, on the psychology of 
music, 233. 



Shorter school sessions, experiments 
on, 280-281. 

Simplicity, meaning of, in manual ac- 
tivities, 71-73. 

Smedley, on the daily energic rhythm, 
290-293. 

Speech coordinations, development of, 
137-141 ; Hartwell on training of, 
149-151. 

Sphygmographic method of studying 
fatigue, 183. 

Spontaneous activities, function of, 
in developing perception of graphic 
form, 116. 

Static ideal of education, 26-29 ; is los- 
ing ground, 49. 

Strength, crude vs. coordinated action, 
123-124. 

Studies, sequence of, in daily pro- 
gramme, 286-287; the best hours for, 
287-288. 

Tardiness in education, evil of, 154- 

155- 

Teasing, as a source of waste of en- 
ergy, 256-259. 

Tension, its relation to coordination, 
126; loss of energy from muscular, 
211; lossof energy from mental, 211- 
212; influence of bodily attitudes 
on, 217-219; effect of aesthetic in- 
fluences upon, 230-234 ; effect of 
music on, 231-232 ; effect of different 
forms on, 235-239; effect of color on, 
239-242. 

" Thinking," motor factors in, 7 ; rela- 
tion to inhibition, 14-15. 

Tone-tester, in the study of fatigue. 



" Unclamping," James on, 216-217. 
Underfeeding, as cause of lack of en- 
ergy, 224-225. 
Understanding, requirements for, 30- 

34- 

Verbalism in teaching, examples of, 

35 (Note) ; verbal patriotism, 38. 
Vigor us. delicacy, of adjustment, 132. 



320 



INDEX 



Vital function, influence of intellectual 
effort on, 183-184; effect of different 
forms upon, 238-239. 

Waste, 246-261 ; from excessively fine 
work, 246-248 ; too precise work in 
writing, 248-250; from writing pens, 
250-251 ; from bad postures, 252- 
255; from overstimulation, 255-256; 
from teasing, 256-259 ; from excessive 
noise, 259-261 ; from maladjustment 
of ocular muscles, 263-273 ; from 
maladjustment of the lens, 266-267 \ 
Gould on the wastefulness of eye 
strain, 267-268; eye strain during 



adolescence, 268-269; from read- 
ing excessively fine print, 271-272; 
from eye strain as cause of dull- 
ness and irritability, 272-274 ; in 
relation to daily programme, 276- 
294. 

Witmer on the enjoyment of different 
forms, 235-238. 

Work, amount of, pupils of different 
ages should undertake, 277-279. 

Writing, dynamic aspect of, 43 ; a form 
of adaptive activity, 115; too precise 
work in, causes waste of energy, 248- 
250; waste from writing pens, 250- 
251. 



A History of Education in the 
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By EDWIN GRANT DEXTER, Ph.D. 

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